Here's a little Hanasakeru Seishounen oneshot to add to the sadly small archive. I'd like to write more for the fandom later, maybe. For some reason I kind of want to write about the white leopard Mustafa (the animal, not Eugene.) He fascinates me. :P
Disclaimer: I do not own Hanasakeru Seishounen.
Knock and Someday, Open
Li Ren raised his fist and rapped gently, just once, on her door, then stood patiently. It wasn't especially rare for him to have to come up and get Kajika himself for dinner – he wasn't sure what exactly she got up to in there, except that sometimes he found her lying on her bed, her hair splayed out over her pillow, or leaning against the windowsill, her silhouette glowing in the moonlight, that faraway look in her misty silver eyes. And she would never know how badly he wanted to ask her what she was thinking of, how he fought back his wish that she might think of him, how sometimes just glancing at her hurt.
Surprised that she hadn't answered yet – she'd never been one to hesitate to open the door, after all - he knocked again. When this still yielded no result, he called out, "Kajika."
After a moment, he added, "It's Li Ren." He dared to hope that realizing it was him, she might come to the door a little faster. He knew those simple pleasures, those brief occasions when she singled him out, were all he would ever be able expect from Kajika. On a good day he could almost convince himself that they were enough.
But there was still no sign of life from Kajika, and it was starting to worry him, his senses always on high alert when it came to her. He rapped on the door again, more sharply. "Kajika? I'm coming in."
Feeling an odd combination of urgency and trepidation, he twisted the knob and stepped in – if she'd locked it, he would have known that something really was seriously wrong – and stopped short, his breath catching in his throat.
It was Kajika, his Kajika, standing there in the middle of the room examining herself in the mirror, but at the same time it wasn't a Kajika he'd met before. She was wearing a white dress, a beautiful yet simple dress to which "white" didn't do justice – the colour of its silky fabric was so gloriously pure, so clean and radiant, and it flowed down her long legs, stood out against the background of her pale, slender shoulders. It was strapless, snug yet not tight on her curves, which suddenly appeared much more womanly than they had that morning, and with the angle he was seeing her from, he could see the perfect ridges of her shoulder blades on her bare expanse of back. She was standing very straight, and she looked somehow stately, young but elegant, flawless.
The ethereal illusion was dispelled in a whirlwind of swirling skirts as she spun quickly, eyes widening in alarm, her hands twining together and flying up to her chest. "Li Ren!" she exclaimed, flustered. She was blushing lightly, not an everyday occurrence; she was self-conscious. It made him uneasy, even guilty – she shouldn't be self-conscious with him, not with her surrogate older brother Li Ren. It was his job to make her comfortable, make her happy and safe and blissfully oblivious, anytime, anywhere. Always. Even when it tore him apart.
"Kajika," he said, trying to ease her embarrassment by pretending nothing was out of the ordinary here, "dinner is ready."
"Oh!" she said, taken aback. Then she smiled a bit sheepishly. "Oh, sorry, Li Ren. You probably knocked, right? I didn't notice at all."
He smiled back, readily forgiving her as he always did, still unable to drag his eyes off her. "So I assumed. I apologize for intruding."
"Don't worry," she assured him good-naturedly. "You did surprise me, though. I didn't actually intend to show this to anybody. At least not yet."
He was pondering the meaning of those last four words when he noticed the faint lace embroidery along her bodice, and immediately saw the accessory she was missing – a veil. Something jolted and curled up in the pit of his stomach as he realized that this was a wedding dress.
His emotions must have flashed across his expression, because she stepped forward inquiringly. "Li Ren…? What's wrong?" she asked urgently.
How could he tell her what was wrong when she looked at him like that, so genuine and innocent? How could he ever do it? Could he, ever? He tried to fix his bland façade back into place, but he managed it a little too late, because she crossed over to him and closed her hands around his larger, rougher one.
"Tell me," she ordered. One day she would be a great head of the Barnesworth company – you only had to hear that commanding note in her voice to know it. Harry was right, he couldn't taint that future with his weakness, couldn't subject her to all his obligations and duties and distances.
He closed his hand around hers in response and lifted it slowly, as if it were a thing as fragile as porcelain, brushing her warm knuckles with his lips. He closed his eyes and tried to press everything he felt into her soft skin. Then he allowed her hand to slide out of his grip, letting her slip through his fingers as always. When he looked up at her, he could smile again and be what she wanted him to be.
"Nothing is wrong," he said quietly, and segued into, "You look beautiful, Kajika. May I inquire as to the occasion?" His heart beat painfully fast, not wanting to anticipate the answer.
She blinked, her hand still floating in the air where he'd released it. "Wow," she commented, and smiled. "You can be charming at the most unexpected times, Li Ren."
He raised his eyebrows, not denying it, and she continued, "Occasion? There isn't one, really. I mean, obviously there isn't one. I doubt that I'll be getting married so soon, no matter what kind of game my father wants me to play. But…well..." Here she paused and coloured again, and a small part of him rejoiced in that, that perhaps a small part of her could see him as a man, a more than casual observer to whom her beauty might be worth something. Be worth everything, in fact.
But she recovered herself and went on, businesslike. "When I last saw my father he gave me a package, and I just opened it tonight and found this dress inside. I somehow couldn't help trying it on, and I got absorbed in it, I guess." She looked up, meeting his eyes and saying earnestly, "It was my mother's."
This meant less to him than she probably thought it would. He'd never known her mother, but seeing Kajika in that gorgeous dress, he couldn't imagine anyone else in it. But he knew that it meant a lot to her, and that was all he needed to know.
"I'm sure she'd have wanted you to have it, Kajika," he assured her with tender composure. "Clearly your father does."
She glanced back at the mirror, whatever vision she saw in it drawing her away from him, that dreaminess filling her gaze. "I'll never really know what she'd have wanted, though."
Li Ren remained silent, but he touched her shoulder gently. Sometimes he needed to touch her, just to make sure that she wasn't already gone, lost to him forever. Kajika was strong, stronger than he was in many ways, but any second she could just disappear.
Suddenly she laughed, a sound as startling as it was welcome. "But it's all right, isn't it?" she said buoyantly. "I feel as if I can just be happy wearing the dress that she wore once, without asking questions about it. So I should just believe you, that she'd have wanted this for me. I never go wrong believing you, Li Ren."
"I certainly won't object to that sort of thinking," he replied lightly, warmed by her faith,"but when it comes to trust, you should be careful, Kajika."
"With you?" she said playfully. She whirled back around to face him again, auburn hair bouncing by her chin as she smiled dazzlingly. "Never."
She leaped up, putting her hands on his upper arms and levering herself upwards to kiss him on the cheek. He wrapped his arms around her, engulfing her in his Chinese robes, and held her for as long as he dared, as long as he could stand. Then she darted away, still clutching his hand, which she raised over her head, twirling gracefully underneath it like a ballroom dancer. He twirled her again, then a third time and a fourth, while she laughed like a child, her joy filling him with what he hadn't known he was hungering for.
He moved with her, keeping a firm hold on her, anchoring her. It reminded him of all those years ago on the island, when she would grab him and spin him around on the beach with her, her little bare feet kicking up sand all over his ankles, and he would hang on to her with all his might, afraid that she would lose her balance, willing to be dragged down with her if it would save her some pain. But she never lost her balance, and she never dragged him down at all. Kajika had always been talented that way.
She stopped at last, out of breath, vivid and rosy-cheeked. She beamed at him. He thought, fondly, that for the daughter of one of the richest men on the planet, with all her high-up connections and luxuries and exotic destinations, Kajika was very easily pleased.
"Sometimes it feels like nothing has changed since when we began – like now," she remarked thoughtfully. He liked how she put it, when we began. He began where she did. "But I know it really has." She smiled. "In the best way possible, I hope."
The best way possible for her was not the best way possible for him. But she would never know that, because he would never tell her. And in spite of that, things were good between them. Things were better than good, actually, but he could never describe what things between them were exactly. "It's changed," he confirmed. He hesitated, then found himself seized with a need to say, "But, Kajika – you should never change too much. Not for your father, or for Carl or Rumaty or Eugene. Or for me. I wish I could protect you from some of the choices you'll have to make, but that would mean making them for you, and I could never do that. You...there's no need for you to rush into anything."
He floundered, trying to figure out how to make her understand his seriousness. He struggled, finally speaking the words that he was afraid he might regret but that he knew were true. "Carl, Eugene or Rumaty – they will all wait for you, if they deserve you. No matter how long. As will I." He could add the last only because he knew she wouldn't see it for what it was underneath the layers, and even if it was hard to bear it was all he could give her.
He looked at her, and he tried to think of what else he could say, but everything was a whirlpool in his mind and at its centre was the simple thought of how achingly beautiful she looked in that dress.
"I know, Li Ren." She said it with perfect sincerity, utter gravity; she'd understood, and it relieved him more than he could say. "I know all that. I swear I won't make any choice until I'm ready." She fingered her billowing skirt absently before declaring jokingly, "But then again, I should make sure I marry while this dress still fits."
He smiled. "It does fit," he agreed quietly.
"All right, then!" Kajika exclaimed, with the refreshing air of someone who had just let go of a burden. "I'll be down to dinner in a minute, Li Ren. I just need to change clothes. I don't want anyone else seeing this yet." She cocked her head, smiling. "But I'm glad you saw it. Somehow I think it would have been bad if any of the others had seen me like this, but it's different with you."
As usual, her special attention to him was bittersweet, but for once he didn't feel that sense of loss; after all, thanks to the fact that he was "different", he had been allowed to experience this moment with her, just him and her, and none of the others would get that chance. He wasn't where he wanted to be in Kajika's eyes, but he was never excluded from her affections.
He nodded. "Come down when you're ready. I'll be waiting." He let himself out of her room, closing the door behind him. Just one door between them. How much of an obstacle was a door, really, especially when she left it unlocked?
It would never happen, he knew that. But maybe it could. At the very least, he could wait. He had promised her that he would.
Whenever you're ready, Kajika.
A/N: This is just my opinion, but I always feel like Li Ren knows Kajika best and loves her best too. No offense to anyone who likes another of the guys better - they're all interesting, but Li Ren is my favourite. :) But boy, is that love hard on him. It makes me want to write all about his angsty emotions, lol.