A Thousand Cranes
A Thousand Cranes
By Mika
Trowa woke to the sounds of crinkling paper and dug his head deeper
into his pillow to muffle the groan that traveled up his throat. Rubbing a hand over his sleepy eyes, he sat
up and surveyed the room.
As expected Quatre was sitting on their desk across the room,
diligently folding the brightly colored seven by seven centimeter pieces of
paper that lay in a neat pile on the tabletop.
"Quatre..."
A blonde head snapped up, hands
pausing in their folding. A puzzled
expression met his tired one.
"Trowa? What are you doing
awake?"
Trowa frowned, resting his hands atop his lap. "I was about to ask you the same
question, koi, but I already know why."
He sighed audibly before continuing.
"You have to stop this Quatre.
It's three in the morning!
You'll get sick."
"I will not," the
other replied rather indignantly.
"And besides, the happiness of our marriage depends on this! How could you risk something so important
over a few hours lost of sleep?"
Trowa shook his head in
frustration, not believing the irrationality spurting from his usually very
rational better half. "Quatre, our
happiness is _not_ threatened if you don't make a thousand cranes! Duo does not know what he's talking
about. Now get in bed!"
Quatre let the blue paper crane
he held fall onto the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. "It wasn't Duo; it was Heero if you
must know and I don't know why you're so worked up over this." Blue eyes seemed to widen after that
statement. "You see! We're fighting already!" He turned back around and grabbed a sheet of
purple paper and began folding with much more vigor than before.
Trowa threw his arms in the air
before falling back onto their bed with a light thump. Nothing was said for a while; the only noise
in the room was that of crinkling colored paper.
*crinkle-crinkle*
...
*crinkle-crinkle*
"Quatre..."
*crinkle-crinkle* "Hm?" *crinkle-crinkle*
"How many more?"
*crinkle-crinkle* "Four hundred and fifty-seven."
...
A sigh. "Quatre, at least let me help
you..."
*crinkle-crinkle* "Sorry Trowa, *crinkle-crinkle* but
Heero said I had to make them all by myself for it to work." *crinkle-crinkle*
...
"I figure if I work from
the moment I get home from the office until four in the morning and then take a
two hour nap I can be done in time for our wedding. Oh wait! I can use my
lunch break too! That will definitely
cut down the time. I'll definitely be
done before the wedding!"
'Tomorrow, Heero is _dead_'
The End ^_^
Mika-chan
October 15, 2000
Author's
Note (7/29/01):
I've
been asked about a dozen times (and have gotten quite a few cold
looks...well figuratively) about how I could make fun of the story
involving the Japanese girl and the 1000 cranes when I wrote this
story. And having to reply to so many e-mails about it, I decided
to put this up.
I'm
not making fun nor am I being cruel for having written this story.
While writing this fiction I didn't have that legend in mind at all, that
is, until someone pointed it out to me. Folding cranes (or stars,
etc.) is a practice done usually by Asian teenage girls in which after
folding, they give them to their boyfriends in a jar. You see,
folding a certain number of cranes has a certain meaning. For
example, folding 100 (I think) means love. I'm not an expert on
this (despite being Asian myself -_-), but this is the gist of it.
I
heard from my friend's aunt that folding a thousand cranes before you
get married will give you good luck for the marriage. So...that's
where this story came from.
I
hope this clears up the confusion.
