Disclaimer: I don't not own the characters of Mai-HiME. I only steal them once in awhile for dark, personal pleasures.
A/N: If you're a die-hard ShizNat shipper, now would be a good time to click the Back button.
Also, this fic is dedicated to Midori-sensei, who was very helpful in providing feedback along the way.
Finally, I would like to point out that the author of this story is a pathetic and insecure individual in constant need of reassurance. Or in other words, please review. ^^
The Ramifications of Hair-Pulling
Haruka wasn't really sure why she did it.
Then again, the events of the Carnival had left her unsure about a lot of things.
It was an altogether foreign sensation to the young Suzushiro, that feeling of standing on unsteady ground, her confidence faltering. But ever since her resurrection, uncertainty had been hanging over her like a big black cloud.
There were some days she could have sworn it was all a bad dream. Today was one of them. The sun was shining, and classes were great. She'd decided on a university about a week ago, and it was promising to be the start of a wonderful summer.
But then she pushed open the door to the Student Council room.
Yukino greeted her, subdued as usual, with an undertone of resignation that had been there since the moment Haruka told Shizuru exactly what she thought of her.
She'd seen that expression on Yukino's face whenever the bespectacled girl got bullied as a child. She would draw into herself, with nothing but quiet disappointment shining in her soulful green eyes. This time, it was Haruka who'd put it there, and that knowledge ate away at her like acid.
Next had been Reito, all smiles and charm until she took a good, hard look at him and saw the shadows on his face. An overwhelming sense of fatigue poured from his rigid posture, and his lips were dry and chapped as he broke eye contact with her to stare out the window.
And then, there was Shizuru.
Beautiful, impenetrable Shizuru, who'd fallen from grace and unraveled like a ball of yarn before Haruka's eyes, seconds before killing her with a smile.
If you could see her now, you'd never know that she'd recently been through a catastrophe of mythical proportions. There she sat, without a single crease out of place on her immaculately clean uniform, her hair perfect.
"Good afternoon, Haruka-san," she greeted, calmly sipping tea in her usual spot in front of the blackboard. Since the Carnival, she hadn't roped Haruka into doing her work even once. Instead, she'd been gracefully turning up to every meeting, and doing exactly what she was supposed to, as if it was what she'd been doing all along.
But it wasn't. And the stifling atmosphere of the room was as real as the Carnival had been.
The only person that looked relatively unscathed was – surprise, surprise – Shizuru.
Haruka watched as Shizuru oversaw the meeting to organize the graduation ceremony. For the most part, she remained quiet, but occasionally, she would contribute with a question or a relevant thought. As the meeting carried on, she looked calm and interested, as if she didn't have a care in the world. As if there was nothing more important for her to think about than seating arrangements in the auditorium.
Haruka watched, and the more she watched her act like her usual, unaffected self, the more it pissed her off. It pissed her off to the point where she'd seriously contemplated just going up to her and punching her in the face.
This time, she didn't say a word to Yukino about it, just seethed as she sat through the meeting, her amethyst eyes trained on the President.
Shizuru had spoken briefly to the two of them a few days after the incident, and given a heartfelt apology. Haruka had seen the gentle resignation in her eyes and for a moment, had even believed that the Kyoto girl would actually open up a little.
But the apology was a moral necessity rather than an act of friendliness, and in the end, Shizuru was still untouchable.
Why couldn't she cry, goddammit?
Why couldn't there be a single shred of fear or anger to her? Or anything that indicated for even a second that she was as fragile and human as the rest of them, and that the Carnival had traumatized her as much as Haruka knew it had?
But no, she just had to go back to the same infuriating routine, and everyone else was all too willing to forget that their Kaichou-sama was just a girl.
Before Haruka realized it, the meeting had ended. Reito had just left a few minutes ago and Yukino had gone on ahead.
There was only her, rooted in her chair as she observed Shizuru finishing the rest of her tea. Her bright, amethyst eyes lingered on the play of sunlight in the President's smooth-looking hair. And that turned out to be her downfall.
Cause the next thing she knew, the blonde was striding up to the front of the room with a sense of purpose that she'd sorely missed throughout the past few weeks.
Haruka wasn't really sure why she did it, but she did it with gusto.
Blood-red eyes barely widened in surprise before the blonde tangled her hand into well-conditioned, feather-soft hair, and pulled.
She grabbed a hearty fistful and pulled hard, a small part of her delighting in the cry of shock that tore its way out of Shizuru's throat. The tea spilled all over her spotless white jacket as the brunette jerked in her chair. The cup fell to the floor with a clatter.
Haruka pulled, and didn't let go.
With her neck craned back at an awkward angle, Shizuru stared at her with a look of disbelief.
"Ara," she said, her voice slightly strained from her position, "I didn't realize Haruka-san liked to play rough."
"Shut up, bubuzuke," Haruka growled, pulling even harder and making the brunette wince. "That's what infuriates me about you, you worthless hippie. You act like nothing ever bothers you, and instead you make those disgusting jokes of yours. Well I know butter."
Shizuru did not show her usual amusement at Haruka's verbal slip-up. Her wine-red eyes flashed with anger and the blonde felt the room temperature drop.
"Haruka-san," the President's voice was frightfully calm. "Let go of my hair."
"Not until you start acting like a normal human being," Haruka retorted.
"I'm warning you-" Shizuru started, but the blonde talked right over her.
"What's wrong with showing a bit of innovation, huh? Why are you so afraid of being like the rest of us? I saw you, bubuzuke. I saw-"
Shizuru twisted suddenly, her elbow shooting out behind her quick as lightening, catching the blonde right in the gut. Haruka's grip loosened and the President took the opportunity to get away, only to yank the blonde's wrist and use her body's downward momentum to twist her arm behind her.
The back of the chair hit the floor with a bang, and Haruka found herself bent forward with her face shoved into the cold surface of the desk. It took her a second to realize how quickly the tables had turned, and when she did, she cursed. She grunted with pain as the other girl pushed her weight onto Haruka's twisted arm.
"Now." Shizuru's voice was cold as ice in her ear. "I believe an apology is in order."
Haruka struggled fiercely, her face flushing as she twisted in Shizuru's grip.
"I'm not apologizing to a tea-drinking pervert like you," she growled, and cried out as Shizuru twisted her arm even harder. She knew that she was hitting the Kyoto girl exactly where she shouldn't, but for some reason, she just couldn't bring herself to stop.
"Ara, I'm sorry," the brunette murmured dangerously, "I didn't quite catch that. Would you care to repeat yourself?"
The feeling of Shizuru's warm even breath against her neck raised her hackles, and she clenched her jaw, hating how effortlessly the other girl always managed to manipulate her. One moment, she would be the very image of serenity. The next, she'd already lunged and sank her teeth in. Whether it was with that damned Kyoto-ben, or a smile, or a twist of her arm, or a decisive swipe of a supernatural naginata.
An image of a viper striking its prey came unbidden to her mind.
That's what Shizuru was. A snake.
A beautiful
deadly
snake.
And she'd be damned if she let her have the upper hand again. Because as much as Shizuru might fancy herself perfectly emotionless, her defenses were not impenetrable. She breathed and bled like everyone else, and all Haruka really wanted was to see inside her heart, just a little. She wanted to see something real in her eyes, a crack in her armor, a tear in her facade.
She would never admit it, but a tiny part of her found it exhilarating that the "perfect lady" of Fuuka Academy had wrestled her to the desk like they were a pair of brawling schoolboys. Oh she'd always known that Shizuru had it in her. That's what made it all the more satisfying when the brunette finally let it out.
She could see Shizuru in the reflection on the nearby window. Her hair was mussed, with the large handful that Haruka had mercilessly yanked sticking out as if she'd slept on it. Her face was pale, her jacket was stained, and her lips were drawn into a line. Everything from the rigid arch of her back to the stern set of her jaw screamed anger. It was raw, and unbecoming, and everything that Kaichou-sama wasn't.
Haruka's head spun, whether from her physical exertion or from Shizuru's proximity, she wasn't sure. Through it all, she managed a dark smile.
"If you think you can overpower me," she said, "you've got another thing coming."
Without thinking, she slammed her heel down on Shizuru's foot and roughly groped her with the hand that was twisted behind her. She heard the President suck in a breath and wrested her arm away with brute strength, wincing at the sharp pain of the movement and barely noticing as a stack of papers from the desk fluttered haphazardously to the ground.
Then with an angry roar, she shoved the brunette off of her, sending Shizuru stumbling backward and tripping over the upturned chair.
The Kyoto girl's head hit the floor with a resounding crack, and for a moment, she laid perfectly still.
Haruka's heart gave a mighty wrench. "Bubuzuke-" she uttered, but froze as Shizuru's eyes snapped open and locked onto her with a baleful intensity.
She could only watch as the disheveled brunette gracefully picked herself up off the floor. A single droplet of blood slid down the side of her thigh, where a bit of her skin tore against a leg of the chair.
For a moment, all that could be heard in the room was the sound of their breathing. There were a million different emotions in her crimson eyes, and Haruka couldn't read a single one of them.
Surprisingly, Shizuru was the first one to look away.
The Kyoto girl bent down and gently righted the chair before pushing it in against the desk. "That," she said, her voice softer than Haruka had ever heard it, "was uncalled for."
The blonde glared at her defiantly, knowing that Shizuru was right. But while her brain was telling her to apologize, her mouth stubbornly refused to say the words.
"You're really starting to irritate me, Haruka-san," the brunette continued, her expression hooded and subdued and her eyes hidden behind a curtain of hair as she picked up the empty teacup and set it on the desk.
Then she picked up the papers that had been displaced in the scuffle, and started to reorganize them. "If you're not going to apologize or explain yourself, now would be a good time to leave."
Haruka heard a slight hint of shakiness in her voice, and watched her with an indecipherable expression as Shizuru continued in her task. Was it her imagination, or were the Kyoto girl's movements just a little bit jerky?
A drop of wetness fell onto the page the brunette was standing over. Followed by another.
Haruka took a step closer to the other girl and felt her own eyes misting over as her heart ached.
"I hate you bubuzuke," she whispered. The brunette froze for just a moment before resuming, and it was enough for a lump to form in Haruka's throat.
A single tear traced its way down her cheek. The blonde angrily wiped it away.
"I hate everything about you. I hate the way you sip your tea and pretend you don't have a single care in the world. I hate the way your smile lights up the room regardless of whether or not you mean it. I hate that the image you show to other people is nothing like what you actually are."
"I hate you, bubuzuke. And I'm not leaving," Haruka finished in a ragged whisper.
Shizuru finally looked up, her eyes shining with pain, confusion, and something else entirely, but before Haruka could figure out exactly what it was, she surged forward and impulsively crushed her lips to the other girl's.
The brunette was still for a stretching, breathless moment… and then, Haruka felt her kissing back.
And for the first time in her life, she was embraced by the girl she'd always secretly admired.
Shizuru's lips were sweet and surprisingly hesitant against her own as they moved together in a bruising, tender, impossibly soft dance that tasted of tears, tea and cinnamon chapstick.
It was her first kiss, the blonde realized, and she was having it with the bubuzuke-onna of all people.
Funny thing was, she wouldn't have had it any other way.
Haruka let the rest of the world wash away in the sea of sensations that took hold of her. The faint, sensual tang of her foreign perfume. The heat of her proximity. The small, trembling sigh which Haruka drank up greedily, dizzy in the knowledge that this was affecting Shizuru as much as it was affecting her.
Finally Shizuru pulled back, but only so that she could turn toward her.
Their shallow breaths mingled in the air, and as amethyst eyes locked with crimson, Haruka glimpsed a shadow of fear behind the dark glimmer of anticipation.
The lingering tension on the blonde's face melted into a rare, soft smile. Wordlessly, the President slid an arm around Haruka's waist and kissed her again.
This time, there was nothing hesitant about it. Their lips crashed needily together, and coaxed one another apart. Shizuru teased her bottom lip with her tongue, and her own darted out to meet it. Haruka shivered at the first, delightful contact, and groaned as the brunette gently sucked it into her mouth.
The blonde closed the gap between them and braced her hands against the desk, trapping the other girl in her arms as their bodies pressed flush against one other. A pale hand reached up to caress a cheek slightly smudged with purple eye-shadow, sending a pleasant shiver skittering across Haruka's skin. Cool fingertips rasped over the side of her neck and down the center of her back before Shizuru drew her even closer.
Haruka ran her hands over the brunette's hips and up her sides, and felt the other girl shiver against her.
Intoxicated, she pressed yet closer.
Shizuru's arms withdrew for a moment as the brunette lifted herself to sit on the edge of the desk. Soft, warm legs wrapped around the blonde's hips, and Haruka felt a delicious, unfamiliar ache in the space between her thighs.
They gasped simultaneously as Haruka surged into the other girl's heat. Fingers tangled into a mane of blonde hair as Haruka trailed kisses across a white, graceful jawline. The Kyoto-woman let out a breathless moan, and her heart raced.
They were reaching the point of no return, the blonde thought hazily, but the contact was far too addictive for her to completely pull away. Instead, she recaptured Shizuru's lips.
It could have been minutes or days before they broke apart, panting.
Shizuru's crimson eyes were darkened with desire along with a shy, somewhat hidden adoration that the blonde would have normally missed. Her hair was mussed and her normally pale cheeks were tinged with pink. It was a sight that drove Haruka wild.
"What are we doing?" The brunette murmured huskily, her Kyoto-accent even thicker than usual as she traced the smooth contours of Haruka's face.
"I don't know, bubuzuke," she answered honestly, even as she leaned into the other girl's touch. Shizuru had always had a dangerous affect on her, and for the longest time, she'd been terrified of it. Terrified of the Kyoto girl's effortless sensuality, and terrified of her own reaction to it. And now…
Now was no exception.
Cos as much as she wanted this, as much as she could feel the aching need surging through her veins, this was not what she was truly after.
For years, Shizuru was the only one who could make Haruka falter.
The outspoken blonde had always been taught to work hard, and stand up for what was right regardless of the opinions of other people. And for the most part, she was able to follow that philosophy.
Shizuru was the only one whose opinion she really cared about, no matter how much she tried to put her out of her mind. She wanted to be respected by the mysterious brunette. She wanted to be acknowledged, and she wanted to be let in.
And if all else failed, she wanted to be hated by her, because even that was much, much better than not having an effect on her at all.
And yes, she supposed she did have the occasional forbidden fantasy about being physically intimate, but if she were to be completely honest with herself…
What she truly yearned for was Shizuru's love.
She could still remember the bile rising in her throat as she watched Shizuru and Natsuki behind the bushes, and the burning jealousy in her chest as she sealed her hurt behind a mask of self-righteousness.
It was hard to believe that that was only three weeks ago.
Haruka would be lying if she said she didn't want this, but…
She still didn't have a clue as to what was going on in Shizuru's head, did she? Could things really have changed that much?
Her train of thought was derailed as the other girl pulled her into a warm embrace. Instinctively, she sank into it and rested her chin on Shizuru's shoulder, though her mind was still going a mile a minute.
"Bubuzu-" she blurted, but stopped as she felt a finger against her lips.
The brunette pulled back and looked her in the eye with a familiar expression of gentleness. And yet there was something so inexplicably different about it – a genuineness in her eyes that Haruka had never seen before.
"It's alright," Shizuru said with a soft, reassuring smile that Haruka allowed herself to be reassured by for once. "I don't want Haruka to do anything she might regret later… and to be honest, I'm not altogether sure that I'm ready either."
"Besides," she added, gently rubbing the back of Haruka's head. "We'll have plenty of time."
She was referring to the fact that they would be attending the same university. For the first time since she made her decision, Haruka felt happy about that.
Come to think of it, it was turning out to be a day full of firsts, wasn't it?
With a weary sigh, she pulled Shizuru into another hug and closed her eyes. "I'm sorry I pulled your hair and called you a pervert," she mumbled.
"Ara-"
"Shut up and let me finish," she interrupted gruffly as she gave the girl in her arms a determined squeeze. "I know we've already disgusted what had happened during the Carnival, but there's something else I need to say."
She drew in a breath and reached up to wipe away a tear. "I shouldn't have said those things to you. The truth is I was zealous of you and Kuga. I'm sorry and… I forgive you."
"I forgive you too," Shizuru whispered, her voice husky with emotion. "And I care for you, Haruka. Very much."
"Can we just stay like this for awhile?"
"Of course."
And so, in the quietness of the Student Council room, two very different girls held each other close, oblivious to everything but each other. The light of happiness seemed to finally peek over the horizon, and they both found themselves looking forward to face the days to come, together.
But Shizuru Fujino and Haruka Suzushiro… were Shizuru Fujino and Haruka Suzushiro. And as much as Haruka was a closet-romantic, she had not, for a single second, deluded herself into expecting any sort of domestic tranquility.
Especially when Shizuru spoke up again.
"Ara, Haruka?" she said, her tone suspiciously light and innocent.
"Mm?"
"When we do become physically intimate, please call me Shizuru."
"…"
"BUBUZUKE!!!"