Evolution
Summary: She starts to notice a pattern forming. One Shot – Misaki, Usui and two cell phones.
Warning: -
Set: Throughout the latest chapters – 71 or so.
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
A/N: For those who have noticed, I haven't been able to reply as usual to the reviews you've left me lately. I'm in the midst of writing my Bachelor Thesis. Hopefully, in August, it will be all over... Thanks to everyone who commented, selected my stories as a favorite or put me on author's alert. You're making me survive this.
His voice sounds different on the phone.
Misaki cannot say how different exactly. Somehow Usui's voice – his pronunciation, his tone – sounds softer and deeper, as if he is whispering into her ear.
Which, in a way, he is.
Misaki never liked telephones much. Telephone calls meant something was wrong in the house she couldn't fix by herself – a broken pipe, a flooded cellar. Telephone calls meant Suzuna was ill and their mother needed to make an appointment with the doctor. Telephone calls meant teachers would call, asking whether Misaki had handed over the papers for the parent teacher conference. Which she had done every time. It was only that their mother couldn't afford attending them because she needed to work overtime in order to take care of her two daughters. Telephones meant her mother would spend hours on the line, talking to her own parents, ensuring them they were fine and were doing well and that her daughters were fine as well, and there was no need to come over to care for them and no, thank you, she didn't need another husband, she was married already. Telephones meant the call they were waiting for didn't come and didn't come and never came, no matter how much Suzuna cried and Mother smiled and Misaki waited, longingly at first, then fearful and later furious.
"And there are these twins, at least they look like twins, and one of them always carries around a teddy-bear. They are trying to be nice but I don't think they ever had to be and they don't really have the idea what being friendly means…
Are you listening, Ayuzawa?"
Of course she is. Soaking in every word of his, even if he talks about things she does not want to know. Because knowing she can't just walk across the corridor or wait in the Student Council room to meet him is bad enough, and listening to him recounting his days at Myabigaoka is even worse. At the same time she wants to know what he is doing, whom he is talking to, how he feels. A nice situation she has trapped herself in, hasn't she.
"How was your day, Ayuzawa?"
They haven't really figured out when to call each other by their last and when by their first names. Or perhaps Usui has figured it out pretty well because he calls her Misa-chan when she's wearing her uniform, and President when she's in her school uniform, and they don't meet much outside those times. She calls him Usui and his last name is enough to bridge the distance, even though it keeps him away a tiny little bit every time. It is safer, she tells herself, and, at the same time, yearns to say his first name out loud. She shapes her lips around the syllables – Takumi – and is scared by the feeling of intimacy.
"Will you be at the Maid Latte tomorrow?" She asks him and listens to his silence at the other end of the line.
"I have other plans," he tells her. His voice changes with his feelings, she can say that much by now. It's his serious-regretting-resignating voice he is using when he talks about things he cannot tell her. "But how about I come visit you there on Friday?"
Friday is the busiest day of the week. Misaki knows, and Usui knows, as well. She tells him. He chuckles.
"That's how much I want to see you, Ayuzawa."
And again, she is stunned silent by the simplicity of his words. And at the impact they still have on her.
…
"How do you feel?"
He knows how she feels. Why is he asking? For a second, she wants to throw the piece of electronics that connects her to the voice of the person she wants to see so much it hurts but cannot across the room. Shatter it into all its substantial, tiny pieces, trample them in all their shiny, silicon glory, listen to them break and shatter under her feet. People destroy things every day, and people hurt other people every day. So why does it still hurt so much?
"You are angry with him."
Of course she is. Misaki is angry with her mother for not telling her the truth. She is angry with Suzuna for missing their father enough to recognize him by his cooking. She is angry with her father for being the way she is and even angry with Usui for not having told her, for not having understood earlier who this stranger was and what the consequences of his being there would be. At the same time, she wants to see Usui so bad it hurts because he, of all, understands her best even if she does not understand herself.
"Actually, I think you have every right to be."
And slowly, drop by drop, her fury melts and leaves behind exhaustion, and she falls back onto her bed and listens to Usui's silent voice recounting the dynamics of a world she has no entrance to. He tells her of his school day, of the people and his life, and she listens even though the words don't mean much. His voice does.
"Misaki, are you still awake?"
Her name jolts her out of a semi-world between waking and dreaming and she blushes furiously because the feelings he is sending through the digital void along with her name are more than evident in his voice. A stage-whisper full of… Don't think about it.
"Of course I am, stupid Usui."
He laughs and she cannot help but smile.
"I thought you were floating away on the sound of my mysterious, beautiful, alluring voice," he teases and she scoffs and calls him perverted alien.
"I'll give you perverted. Did I ask you what color your underwear has this week?"
He hasn't.
"Red."
Silence at the end of the line. Misaki imagines him – stunned silent by her confession – and blushes furiously herself.
"That's not my underwear but my T-shirt, you pervert!" She yells. "Do you really think I'd answer such a stupid, perverted question?
Hey – why are you laughing!"
…
"Do you have plans for the holidays?"
She has. Working shifts in the Maid Latte, taking Suzuna out for shopping, asking Mother how to bake apple pie.
"Don't make plans for the first Monday in August."
"Why?"
"Because I tell you so."
"I hate surprises."
"I know you do. You'll love this one. You love me, after all."
"Idiot."
…
She starts to notice a pattern forming. His voice, his teasing, his laugh – she needs it. Needs to hear his voice before she falls asleep. She still resents the cell phone for being the only option she has but there is no other way.
"You still there?"
She is the one to ask because there is silence on the other side of the line, a calm silence laced by the careful sound of his presence. Not much but she has become accustomed to it. The silence follows her into her dreams sometimes, soothing her to sleep.
"Yeah."
"You're tired, aren't you."
"Yes."
He's been away for two weeks now, visiting God-knows-whom in who-knows-where, and she really should want to know more but she is so relieved he is back she barely cares.
"Are you okay?"
She probably has asked him this four times already since she picked up the phone, and each time he does not answer.
"Takumi?"
It slips from her lips. She almost does not notice it. But the name falls into a silence so deep she fears she might be drowning, and it scares her to hell.
"I'm coming over to your place."
She is already grabbing a purse, searching for her sweater and shoes.
"No, Misaki. Don't. Just… just talk to me."
She stops on the threshold of her room.
"Please."
Sinks to the floor, her back against the door.
"Aoi-kun is making plans for a performance," she tells him. "Last week, he showed us his costumes. And he wants us to come – says he'd never forgive us if we don't. Father's western style cooking has gotten really good. Some customers always request specials now, Satsuki-San is thinking of a special event in which people can watch him cook live. You-kun is slowly getting the hint from Suzuna, even though he still is slow to realize things. In school, we're preparing for the winter ball. It's our last year, after all. Sakura wants Yumemishi there, but I'm not sure whether I want those idiots in our close vicinity again…"
She's rambling. Telling bits and pieces because she knows he needs it now.
"…
I don't think you ever called me by my first name before."
She blushes, brought out of her concept.
"Say it again."
"Why?"
"Because I love you saying it."
He needs five minutes to make her do it, and when she finally repeats it, she whispers it down the line, her heart beating so fast she swears he can hear it. He is silent for a while. Then…
"I think I want to kiss you right now."
…
The flat-rate her parents got her for her last birthday probably was the best thing they could have given her.
…
"Usui?"
"…
I'm here."
…
But really, the best thing her cell phone is good for is when he calls to tell her he's right there, and Misaki only has to leave her room, walk down the stairs and open the door in order to see him live and in color. And his voice – so expressive and full of nuances while on the phone – is even better when he whispers into her ear and she can feel his breath.
And Usui never is more real than when he holds her.