Title: Ashes, Ashes
Paring: Kamiya Maika/ Otomiya Itsuki
Written for: livejournal's 30 kisses challenge
Theme: invincible, unrivaled
Rating: K+ (for angst) now, but T for later
Disclaimer: The characters and original story on which this is based belong to Arina Tanemura and not me. What I write is just a paltry imitation of her awesome work. (Okay, hopefully not paltry. But certainly, not as good as what she wrote. So if you haven't, go and read Gentlemen's Alliance (Shinshi Doumei Cross) right now! )
a/n: I want to do the themes in order, but they'll be out of order most of the time (they make more sense that way). I hope everyone will enjoy and take a little time to comment… Please? Spoilers abound, so if you haven't read up to chapters 34-35, you probably shouldn't read. I might spoil you terribly, and I reallyreally don't want to. D:
He is the only Gold.
There is only one at the Academy, and as fits his rank he will ascend to success. He will be known as the Gold at twenty, and as a newcomer to the industries his father's company (and he, second in command) will be embraced with open arms. He will be known as the Gold at thirty; when he heads his father's company he will be respected and almost-feared. He will be known as the Gold at forty, and by that time you'd think it wouldn't matter because his corporation will be the topmost in Japan. Perhaps in the world. But no, it still will, because anyone who's anyone will still know that he was the Gold of Imperial Academy. That will be enough. It is more than enough. It makes him a god, really. Untouchable, invincible, exclusive.
There is no one like him.
She, on the other hand, is a bronze. The lowest of the high, but always a low. The formality and splendor of his life are the things that are always going to be just out of her reach. At Imperial Academy, she's already learned this by heart. She puts on her brown, plain uniform every day. She knows.
But, there's no one like her, either. Because when she dances, he feels his heart thump a little faster for no good reason. When he sees her, he feels a smile. When he brushed hands with her, that once, after she dropped her bag, he thinks that he blushed.
This is too over-the-top for comfort. But he wants to see her, again and again and again. He makes stupid excuses to meet with her, which is more difficult than it sounds because she's a bronze and he is the gold. Their schedules, their lives, are so different that it's difficult to even glimpse her between classes.
"Do you like me?" she whispered one day as he was leaving a class. It was so furtive. Even though she'd grabbed his hand, she'd let go of it so quickly that he could hardly tell it was there. Inconspicuous, he thought.
"Do you like me?"
He liked her. More than liked her, probably. More than loved her, he was sure.
She smiled. She had such a bright smile, and such clumsy manners, it was a wonder she was the same girl that danced so gracefully. They may well have been two separate people. He loved them both.
He has always tried to be kind to the bronze students, smiling freely and waving loosely, because that is what an emperor should do. He never gets close enough to touch, though, not to anyone but maybe Kazuhito, and even that relationship is unsure at best.
Never close enough to touch.
He thinks, maybe, now that she's thrown her arms around him and kissing him, he's crossed that line.
No woman will ever be able to replace Maika. When he is twenty, he will still love her. When he is thirty, fourty, she will still be his only.
It's hard for him to think it possible they would ever be split, or that he could ever move on. He has never, really, moved on.
He's stupid. He's not invincible, after all.