i am. enchanted by Pink Martini. so Sunday Table - one of their songs - completely took me by inspiration and my muse began to force my fingers to a keyboard to write this fic.

because i'm lazy to precisely incorporate how the lyrics go with the fic... for everyone's interest as to what the lyrics are: "SUNDAY TABLE" by PINK MARTINI. www . / sunday-table-lyrics-pink-martini . html

TWO MOMENTS, PLEASE

/pseudonymosity

We're not there yet, you and I. But we'll get there.

And for this moment - we're one of those...everyday stories that inspire cliched romance songs.

Sort of like Pink Martini's song, Sunday Table.

You'll see it one day, Misaki.

And you'll see her one day, Takumi.

It's just a matter of moments.

So, you're just walking quickly along the school hallways, scoping out for rude and difficult boys, sweet and defenseless girls, and just an excuse to vent out your frustrations. Another lost opportunity, that would have fixed at least a quarter of your troubles. Work that would support your own sweet and defenseless females from the damages of your father - that rude and difficult man.

(Whoever said that the man is supposed to uphold the household lied. What a load of bull.)

You're selfish and brash and cruel. You know that. And you probably shouldn't lash out at people because, really - it's not healthy to unleash your wrath on them. That's what psychology has told you. But you don't care. Because they don't care about you. So - you really shouldn't have to care about them. The logic is sound.

Besides, you find some reason to yell at them. Porn. Dirty clothes. Mud. Name it. She's probably yelled at someone for it. So it's all very justified. The logic, there, is also sound.

It doesn't matter where or when - you just need someone to...torture. Physically. Verbally. Just for a moment. Because you can't handle it - every day's getting more and more exhausting. Your mother's coughing up a storm, barely able to get up in the morning for work. Your sister is getting more and more reticent - and that's normal, sure, but it's becoming more and more less seldom...normal. Because there's got to be a psychological aftermath to her father's - your father, whatever - abandonment. She's young and malleable.

You're the only person that can help. Somehow mend the disaster that has been these two years. You're the one in charge, now, to take care of your broken mommy and sister. Because they need you.

But that doesn't (but it does) mean you need anyone to know you're broken too. Because really - you don't need anyone. Just yourself.

No one, but you.

(Isn't that a song?)

So, you're sitting, flipping over the textbook - as if it matters that you're reading it. You've already covered this text. Way back when. When is where huge, picturesque estates exist, over lush green and scattered trees and flora. When is where you sleep, in a large bedroom that is pretty much useless because no four year old really needs that big of a bed.

(Somehow, you know that the empty expanses of your room are supposed to be filled with toys and airplane models. Or whatever else kids of your age play with.)

When is where wide libraries are both a sanctuary and a hell. Wooden chairs and matching desks. Scaling, skyscrapers of bookshelves hug the walls. And you sit and you read from every text known to man - and then some. And you love it - the reading - but resent it at the same time.

(Somehow, you know that resentment isn't something you're supposed to feel. And whatever else kids of your age are not supposed to feel.)

Being alone in a house with no legitimate playmates doesn't leave much for you to do, except to read and study. And you were hoping - back then - that if you studied and learned everything the adults wanted you to, you wouldn't have to deal with stuffy indoors, stuffy relatives, and stuffy tutors. Maybe your guardians would actually let you do something other than studying. If there's nothing more to learn, they're bound to make you do something else. And hopefully that something else would be better than studying. Something more fun.

Or just something. His quota for fun is considerably lower than others. He's not hard to please. Really. He isn't.

(By the way, he was surprisingly ignorant despite his prodigious learning. There's no way he could have learned everything. He may have surpassed their expectations, but he didn't learn enough to get them off his ass.)

He knows they just had his interests at heart - wanted him to learn, since he had an amazing capacity for knowledge.

(But it doesn't mean it still didn't hurt. When they turned him away - all he wanted was to share knowledge of what he had learned that day. When the other children were persuaded not to play with him.)

It's just another day, another morning. You've always repeated to yourself. Live life, you tell yourself. You might as well. You've been doing it all of your life.

"IS HE IN HERE?"

Oh, that booming voice. That tomboy of a Kaichou.

You look up to the doorframe.

Sharp emerald eyes.

Glowering amber eyes.

(Amber.)

She looks at you.

(Emerald.)

You look at her.

(Then again, both of you will have your fair sharing of looking at each other. You, from afar. She, literally behind your back, trying to catch up to you. She doesn't realize she's light-years ahead of you, already. You lagged behind the moment you deemed her interesting. Which is really just a code word for...for something. Let's not go there, yet.)

You look at him.

He looks at you.

And for that moment, you forget why you're in here.

(Then again, you'll always conveniently 'forget' the things he'll do to you. And he'll conveniently let you. But you're beyond baffled exactly why he would ever do that.

Like kisses and confessions on rooftops. Followed by kisses on the unfortunate lips of your VP.)

For that moment, you see something.

She's always been interesting, he's had to admit. If not slightly irritating.

There are no words.

There is no touch.

But you see something.

And she's more interesting because of that something.

For the moments previous and the moments following that moment, you don't feel or see something.

(Not yet.)

He doesn't strike you as anything special. Just a normal guy.

(Who causes problems for her because she becomes the Prince for all the Damsels he's rejected.)

But it strikes you - in that moment, how he looks at you.

Not pity. Not sympathy.

But, like he notices something. That you're broken or something. Which is preposterous. You're not broken.

(Lies are very becoming of you, by the way. He agrees and disagrees, too.)

Then here's the cliché.

The moments break.

(You look away.)

(You look away.)

Into tiny shattered pieces.

And it'll be a while before those pieces are refound. Some are behind a school council's desk. Others are at the rooftop of the school. Even more are sitting innocently on the kitchen floor and counters of a future job, one that is at this very moment being established as a new Maid Cafe on the block.

That place that will provide you some entertainment that words, old pages, and broken book spines can't ever give you.

That place will provide you the exact healing your broken mommy and sister need.

(And your own healing.)

You're still first years. Give it a year or so.

...Actually. More than that. It'll feel like a decade.

Because here's a promise: both of you will rarely ever, ever be mutual about anything. Even up to your marriage, she's going to resist. And he's going to resist your resisting.

(Good old fashioned tug-of-war.)

It'll be fun. Well, not for you. But for everyone else.

Until then.

You're just looking for one of those delinquents.

You're just reading.

For that moment.

i realized i got repetitive with my fairy-tale sort of writing in this again... maybe i'll actually sit down and address that idea of their relationship.

"God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us - in the dreariest and most dreaded moments - can see a possibly of hope."

- Maya Angelou