I just wanted to let everyone know that this story is still kinda rough, so don't kill me for every little flaw, please? . I might come back and fix it more later, depending on things…
I lost my ability to smile some time ago. I guess you could say it's like the mouth freeze you get at the dentist, the kind that numbs your entire jaw so that even a trivial smile can't fight its way onto your face. But with me, the freezing never did wear off. My face stiffens every time I try, and it's all because of her.
Kana.
The one who froze my mouth and forgot to dethaw it with those sweet, gentle lips of hers. It's pitiful, quite frankly, that such a simple bodily movement could cause someone so much traumatic pain. But all I know is my muscles have developed a phobia towards smiling, because for me, anything that emanates even a remote sense of happiness sends me spiraling into a pit of regret. I sacrificed my happiness for the happiness of others, and because of it my soul is empty, stripped of all the things that give it definition and meaning till it's nothing but a hollow somatic museum. You could try and search it for meaning, but I can guarantee you you won't find anything. It's completely empty. A never-ending stretch of frozen tundra that would make even the sun lose some of its fiery confidence. And I think if anyone were to try and gift me with their warmth, I'd drown from the watery emotions that had been unthawed anyways.
But life does funny things to you.
A scarf. That's what I found when I was cleaning out my office, and it was green. Not the grassy hue of green, but the aqua kind that can't make up its mind whether it's blue or green, so it settles somewhere right in the middle. And the sewing of it was absolutely horrific; one row of knit would entwine sporadically with the next, and the asymmetry of the whole thing was trying so ridiculously hard to look flawless that I felt my lips twitch slightly, as if they actually wanted to laugh at such a stupid thing. I could still remember, with perfect clarity, the day I had received that scarf. I remember how Kana's face had smiled with so much joy, so much light, that I could barely fathom how such a failure of a scarf could even be looked at with such carefree happiness. But Kana always did have a way of infusing her happiness into everything she touched…
"I'm back!"
Hatori looked up from his stack of papers, only to be greeted by a blissfully beaming Kana. She was holding two plastic bags in her hands, both of which looked like they were about to snap from the weight inside them, and steam was slithering its way out of the tops like vapory serpents.
"Just put mine on my desk, I'll get to it later," Hatori mumbled bluntly, his hands skillfully aligning a pile of papers that was big enough to make any person's stress level move up a notch. He was also pleased to discover a fringe of neon colored sticky notes haphazardly accessorizing the sides of the pile.
When he looked up Kana had her elbows positioned firmly on his desk, her head resting at a playful angle atop her hands as she eyed him with disapproving sparkle. Hatori knew she was about to object to his decision on skipping lunch. He had hoped she wouldn't catch on to his plan of afternoon fasting, but Kana had the uncanny ability of predicting all of Hatori's moves, sometimes even before he had them figured out himself. At least the only thing she had going for her was the cute way her almond brown hair fanned out over her face, making her look like a frazzled school girl who had just spent the day searching for her misplaced study notes.
"Hatori…"
"Kana…"
For a moment their eyes collided with each other, but Hatori drew himself away from her milk chocolate gaze, shifting his focus instead back on his tedious task of filing paper.
"You need a break, Hatori," Kana declared, her voice laced with her trademark know-it-all tone that Hatori couldn't help but befall vulnerable to. He looked down at his work, absently letting his bangs sweep across his face; the rather seductive gesture had the ability to make most women die in their shoes of sugar-coated fangirl heart attacks, but Hatori chose to ignore this unavoidable fact of life. Thankfully for him Kana had overcome the fangirl level of adoration the members of the Sohma family grew used to dealing with some time ago, and with pure innocence she pushed his bangs gently out of his face; Hatori was left delving into her lush brown eyes uncontrollably.
"Please eat with me?" his assistant cooed, her eyes drawn wide and deliberately blinking at an eyelash fluttering speed. Hatori tried his best to stare back with defiant finalization, but Kana was melting him swiftly into a helpless pool of water.
His eyes softened. "Fine, so long as you promise to stop sabotaging my paperwork with your ridiculously bright colored sticky notes."
A giggle tickled the air as Kana smiled sweet victory. "Don't you like my sweet little reminders I leave you?"
He pictured the last electric pink sticky note he had torn off his work, its surface tattooed in Kana's frivolous handwriting. It had read: 'Don't forget to give those cute eyes of yours a rest!'.
He smiled inwardly. "Not really."
Her response was an animated pout. "Aww, you're no fun. But luckily your good looks make up for that, eh?!"
Hatori rolled his eyes as he grabbed the two plastic bags and walked out of the room, an unprepared Kana hollering for him to wait right on his heels.
* ~ *
"You look so mysterious when you eat your noodles."
Hatori looked up from his steaming bowl of soumen, one of the thick noodles dangling precariously from his mouth as he looked at Kana for verification.
"Well, whenever you lower your head to slurp up the noodles, your bangs go right in front of your eyes and make you look so mysterious," she answered his unspoken question dazedly, as if his eating style had left her in some sort of trance. "It's cute!"
"You think everything's cute."
"Do not!"
Hatori looked down at the murky brown broth, random humps of noodle and vegetable scarring the surface while mushroom heads bobbed around sleepily. It was then he realized Kana had gotten him udon noodles with extra mushrooms; his personal favorite.
"There you go again, looking at me with those hypnotizing eyes!" Kana accused. Raising a questioning eyebrow Hatori lowered his head to eat his udon again, but this time he stared intentionally into Kana's bemused eyes. With comprehensive excitement Kana lowered her head too, slurping up noodles at the same eye level as Hatori, and for a few seconds the two stared at each other like wild cats locked in the heat of battle.
Then, with impeccable suddenness, a strand of broth-soaked soba whipped Kana on the nose, leaving behind a murky brown noodle print as it flopped back into its soup bath. It took every shred of self-restraint for Hatori not to split a gut laughing as Kana dropped her chopsticks in dramatic shock, a napkin quickly replacing them as she hastily began wiping her nose.
"You didn't see anything," Kana proclaimed loudly as her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Hatori just smiled down at his own dimpled bowl of noodles.
"I didn't see anything."
The two continued eating their lunch, Hatori careful not to rest his eyes for too long on Kana's petite face as she slurped her soba with newly developed self-consciousness. But eventually she was sloshing around her bowl with such picky vigor that Hatori couldn't help but investigate into her newfound fussiness.
"Is there something wrong with your soba?"
"Oh, no," Kana answered without removing her eyes from her bowl. She now had a soggy piece of limp cabbage captured between her chopsticks, and she scrutinized the leafy vegetable with a look of pure disgust. "I just really hate cabbage."
She continued with her creation of a mushy cabbage hill in her noodle bowl's lid, her indisputable dedication at removing the broth-soaked leaves amusingly admirable.
"Keep your cabbage purgatory up and you'll have a vitamin K deficiency," Hatori commented. Kana gave him a skeptical glare.
"Don't go turning all doctor on me, smart ass!"
"Well, we wouldn't want that pretty face of yours to lose its luster, now, would we?"
There was an intense moment of silence as Kana fully digested Hatori's words. Then, with rapid courage, she devoured the mountain of cabbage in one messy mouthful.
Her look of raw revulsion was absolutely priceless. "Kana, I was kidding."
Her revolted grinding came to an abrupt halt. "Excuse me?"
"I mean, it's almost impossible for someone to have a vitamin K deficiency unless their body is unable to absorb it properly."
Hatori now had the delight of watching Kana spit out her cabbage paste right into her noodle bowl.
"Right, I'm done then."
She shot him a poison-coated glare, her eyes seething like spheres of molten chocolate. She would've actually looked slightly intimidating if it hadn't been for the sideways smirk that inched across her face only two seconds into her pissed charade.
"You know what?"
"What?"
The sweet face Hatori had come to associate with Kana was now undergoing a complete metamorphosis as she picked up her rejected cabbage strips, an evil glimmer illuminating her chestnut eyes.
"It looks like you could use a little vitamin K yourself."
With a heavy plop the rejected cabbage was dropped right into Hatori's foggy brown broth; he watched as they scattered about like soggy strands of confetti, as if celebrating their return to warm, flavorful stock. He shot Kana an amused look as she stalked off towards the office, and it was then that Hatori finally felt his lips form a fully bloomed smile.
* ~ *
The clock had promenaded around the hour mark with staccato grace a total of six times before Kana's face began drooping closer and closer to the desk's restful surface. The girl was always so committed to completing her tasks as accurately and flawlessly as Hatori specified that she often ran out of gas before she even realized she was running on empty. And somehow, seeing her lively face all burnt out like that made Hatori feel like he was in a room with no lights on.
He approached her quietly, kneeling down to her eye level before resting his hand gently on her shoulder. "Kana."
One eye fluttered open lazily before slapping shut again with teasing speed.
"Kana, I don't like workers who sleep on the job."
His response was a weary grumble.
"Kana…"
"Okay, fine, I'll get up."
As if a match had been struck within her adrenal glands she straightened her back and poised a green gel pen in her hand, ready at once to defeat any question a blank form could challenge her to.
Hatori found himself smiling again. "Pack your stuff up, work's done for you."
He leaned down to grab her bags, but was instantly intersected by a jumpy Kana. For a moment their hands collided, her smooth skin hovering gently against his, until they both pulled away, cheeks tingling and hearts racing.
"I can carry that," Kana smoothed over, her honey sweet voice always like a soothing antidote to an awkward situation. With a bright smile she slipped on her coat, picked up her bags and led them both towards the exit.
The chilly winter air wasted no time in nipping at their bare skin, and the sun shone with a false necklace of heat as the two began their cold trek. Hatori whisked on his jacket briskly, not wanting to catch a cold at such a busy time of year.
"Hey, don't you have a car?"
The statement caused him to stop in his tracks. He had hoped Kana wouldn't pick up on the very obvious fact.
"Yeah."
"Then why aren't we driving in it?"
Hatori could feel his heart punching him in the ribs, and the sinister air seemed to laugh with cold mockery at his stupid choice in transport. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets. "Because I like walking you home."
The sound of Kana's heeled boots bluntly chipped through the air's silence. Hatori grimaced at his vulnerability, wishing he had kept his mouth shut and given her a different answer, one that would've finalized things with a more convincing seal.
"Besides, exercise is never a bad thing."
At this Kana started giggling. It pierced the biting air with harmonious warmth, and Hatori felt as if he was being read as easily as a child's pop-up book.
"You're so cute."
"Do you want me to go get the car?"
"No!" Kana shouted, an unusual amount of intensity to her voice. She seemed to recognize her potent tone, because her face quickly melted into a soft smile. "Because I like it when Hatori walks me home, too." She beamed up at him, her eyes glimmering in the chilly daylight atmosphere like crystallized orbs of chestnut. Hatori, however, felt all his words hastily seek shelter as unexpected happiness flooded his senses; he nestled his waxing smile beneath his coat collar
"Oh, are you cold?" Kana questioned, a sharp note of concern accenting her voice. But before Hatori could even come up with a decent answer, she was embarking on a thorough safari through the bag she had insisted on carrying. Hatori could only cock an eyebrow.
Carefully she pulled out a bundle of wooly green fabric, its loose strands flailing flimsily in the wind's icy breath. Kana's cheeks appeared to be turning an even deeper red then the free shade provided by winter as she fumbled with the mound of fabric.
"I, um, knitted you a scarf," she blundered, her hands cradling the fabric with tender bashfulness as she ignored Hatori's direct gaze. "I made it an aqua green, because Hatori just doesn't seem like a grassy green kinda guy, don't you agree?"
Hatori scanned the scarf's craftsmanship; it no doubt had a rustic homemade touch to it, judging how the loops knotted in all the incorrect places and the rows created asymmetrical veins of wavy material. All in all, the scarf looked like a custom-made mess, but somehow Kana's steel strong dedication shone through every missed weave and loop.
"Here."
Hatori stopped as Kana began coiling the scarf around his neck, its ends tickling his skin like a fabricy snake tongue. He watched her eyes as they vigilantly analyzed the scarf's positioning around his neck; normally, under any other conditions, he would feel extremely uncomfortable with a woman so close against his body. But when it came to Kana, Hatori found himself making a multitude of exceptions, for reasons yet to be fully interpreted by his brain.
With serene delicacy Kana's hand slid down the end of the scarf, and it rested shyly atop Hatori's chest, as if unsure whether or not she had crossed some forbidden personal comfort barrier. Without even thinking Hatori rested his own hand on top of hers, and the two stood still as ice figures, gazing into each other's blatantly contrasting eyes like partner ice skaters caught up in their final pose. Hatori had never in his life experienced the urge to embrace someone, to experience the intimate exchange of body heat that occurred between him and someone else. He was under the impression that the Juunishi curse had murdered that desirable feeling long ago, so he was taken aback profoundly as he stood there, experiencing that very taboo feeling with a girl named Kana. He could visualize the scene to follow like an out of body experience; him leaning in to gently caress Kana's chilled lips, while both their hands found a place to rest around the other person with magnetic attraction. But that would never happen.
As Hatori pulled himself away from Kana's captivating hazel eyes, all he could do was try not to drown from the immeasurable feeling of regret that pulsed through the interstitial fluid of every cell in his body.
"Thank you, Kana," he breathed, speaking aloud his mind's thoughts rather than keeping them hidden. "It's perfect. In every way."
The day seemed to get a little brighter as Kana's eyes widened with happiness. "You mean, you actually like it?"
"I do."
Kana let out a joyful giggle, obviously pleased with herself that the ultra-critical Hatori had seemingly not noticed her terrible crocheting skills. But there was more to her smile this time then there usually was, a sort of glimmer that Hatori wasn't even sure was visible to the naked eye. As she rubbed her hands together in a futile attempt to warm them, Hatori entwined them with his own, and for the first time that day allowed himself to smile openly in Kana's presence.
"I couldn't risk your hands getting cold, now, could I?"
She squeezed his hand knowingly.
"Are you sure that's really why, Hatori?"
The way she said his name, with such a soft, heavenly gentleness, made Hatori feel rather vulnerable; but for once, he didn't mind. Kana was the one and only person he could let his guard down around and actually feel comfortable about it.
"You can decide that."
They began walking again, Kana's freezing little hands collecting warmth from Hatori's as they showcased a rare moment of intimacy together. The feeling of tangible togetherness, even if it was simply holding hands, gave Hatori a newfound sense of self-worth. If someone else saw him as a reason to smile, then maybe his life wasn't as pointless as some people made it seem to be. Having the freedom to think about that special someone, every moment of every day, and to experience the withdrawal that comes with their departure, the tiny little hollow that forms in the heart and eats away at your focus until they return, was an experience Hatori never fully understood until right then. Kana had directed his mind when it was lost, nurtured his soul when growth was stunted, and, most of all, dethawed his ice cold heart when love was nothing but a warm craving. It was because of Kana Hatori had a reason to breathe again. She was his breath of fresh air, the sweet initiative that gave his emotions a reason to come out. She was, undoubtedly, his soulmate.
I looked down at the scarf, its soft exterior only deepening the painful memory of Kana's silky touch. It may have been a waste of wool, may have been an empty source of warmth, but to me, that scarf held memories more sacred then I care to describe. I miss Kana. When her memory was erased, a part of me was deleted with it, and I'll never get that part of me back. So… is a scarf such a trivial thing after all? I don't think so.
But… still.
I can't help but feel my mouth twitching, desperately attempting to form a smile, as I think: Kana… you really are terrible at knitting.
Well, what did you think?? Reviews are always welcome and appreciated. :) All I can say is, I adore Hatori and Kana. I think they are so adorable together, and it breaks my heart every time I see the episode where he erases her memory. Seriously, I use up a whole Kleenex box wiping away tears!! I really wanted to write about them, but this story ended up being more of a release to me than anything. See, I'm currently suffering from really bad writer's block (don't ask me why I wrote this), and right now my confidence with my writing skills is at an all-time low. So I want to apologize to Takaya-sensei (the manga-ka of Fruits Basket) for not being able to use and express her characters as beautifully as she presents them. I'm really so sorry I could not live up to the standard of excellence Fruits Basket provides us all with. Gomenasai, Takaya-sensei.
So please, even though it's probably terrible, enjoy as best you can.