Disclaimer - I do not own the characters of Mai Hime. They are owned by Sunrise~
~Waiting For You~
There was once a girl, seventeen years of age with long flowing midnight-blue hair, and sparkling jade-green eyes. This girl enjoyed taking the train into the heart of the city and walking around, enjoying the lights and sounds of the busy metropolis. Sometimes she would meet her friends there, one with fiery-orange hair and the other with short, bright-red locks.
But most times this dark-haired girl would go by herself to enjoy her free time alone. But sometimes she experienced that feeling of being alone very acutely. There was a cold, lonely place in her heart. One that she tried to fill with the hustle, bustle, and noise of the city streets around her.
But there was one small, and slowly growing spark in the darkness and loneliness of her heart. Everyday that she waited to board her train, the train that pulled up before her on the tracks headed in the opposite direction, always carried a special passenger.
The dark-blue haired girl had noticed this person completely by mistake one day. She had been rushing through the turnstile of the train station, desperately trying not to miss her train. She did miss it of course, and she had huffed in frustration and leaned her back against a wide pole, arms crossed, and stared out into space as she waited for the next train to come by.
That's when her wandering gave fell upon this special person. She was a beautiful looking girl, about the same age as she was. This girl was sitting in the train on the other side of the tracks, and the startling crimson-red eyes that suddenly caught her emerald-green ones took her by surprise. The girl smiled and brushed a curling lock of honey-coloured hair from her eyes, before she waved shyly at the raven-haired girl standing on the train platform across from her.
The dark-haired girl found herself unconsciously raising her own hand, and waving back just as shyly. She then watched the chestnut-haired girl giggle softly into her hand, and the raven-haired girl felt a slightly-goofy grin cross her face.
Then the train began to move and swiftly pull off, and the dark-haired girl felt a sudden, sharp twinge in her heart as she watched the train pull away from the tracks. The chestnut-haired girl had her hand pressed up against the train's window pane, with a faintly forlorn expression on her face.
The emerald-eyed girl watched the girl and the train pull out and away from the train station, and most probably out of her life.
The next day the cobalt-haired girl made sure to miss the early train that would have taken her to the city, and a couple of minutes later the train on the opposite side of the tracks pulled into the station.
She was there.
The ebony-haired girl's heart thumped rapidly, and she couldn't keep the wide smile from spreading across her face. The ruby-eyed girl smiled widely as well, and waved excitedly back at the girl on the opposite side of the train tracks.
And so from that day forth, the two young girls became 'train-buddies'. The sable-haired girl always made sure to miss her usual train and wait those couple of minutes, for her new friend's train to pull in on the other side.
They never spoke in person. They didn't know each others name. But the glow in their hearts that always spread to bright grins on their faces whenever they saw each other, told the true story of their unique friendship.
The raven-haired girl no longer felt that gaping loneliness in her heart, and she decided after the second week of their train-stop meetings, that she wanted to meet the other girl in person finally.
So the very next day the sage-eyed girl made her way over to the other side of the train station, and waited with nervous excitement for the train carrying her special friend to arrive. She wrung her hands anxiously, and paced back and forth as she watched the front of the train approaching. This train was headed towards the countryside, and the ebony-haired girl wondered briefly to herself as the train pulled into the station and stopped before her, why her chestnut-haired friend needed to go to the countryside every day. But she shrugged her shoulders and put the thought to the back of her mind, as she nervously bounced from one foot to the other, waiting for the doors of the train to woosh open.
She then took that first shaky step into the train, walked forward a few steps towards the spot her chestnut-haired friend always sat...and then her steps froze, and her whole body went rigid with shock.
The scarlet-red eyes that she had looked forward to seeing every day, looked up at her with a mixture of shocked surprise and then resigned sadness.
The jade-eyed girl felt her mouth open and close a few times, and she had the unpleasant sensation that she looked like an idiotic fish gaping its mouth open and shut. So she immediately snapped her teeth and lips shut.
The midnight-blue haired girl then felt gentle pressure against her fingers, and she looked down to see that her friend was now tightly clasping her hand. The emerald-eyed girl continued to look down at the girl before her, and the slightly-shaking hand still holding her own. Both seemed so fragile now that she was finally facing her friend in person.
Natsuki then gave herself a good mental shake...and a good mental slap upside the head...and gave her friend a soft, sincere smile of pleasure.
"Hello. It's nice to finally meet you. My name is Natsuki," the dark-hired girl said, as she continued to smile down warmly at the girl still holding her hand.
The shaking in the delicate hand finally stopped, and a smile that threatened to take Natsuki's breath away spread across the honey-haired girl's face.
"It's nice to finally meet you too, Natsuki. My name is Shizuru," the girl replied, as she gently moved the wheel of her wheelchair with her free hand, and lightly tugged at Natsuki to sit in the vacant seat beside her.
Natsuki gave the burgundy-eyed girl a slightly lopsided grin, and quickly moved to sit beside her special friend.
And how truly special she turned out to be, as she and Natsuki shared interesting stories and funny tales of their lives, as the train sped away to the beautiful countryside treatment center that Shizuru went to every day to rebuild the strength in her damaged legs. Natsuki learned all of this and so much more about her friend, and she herself shared many things that she had never told anyone else before.
And so on this day when two young girls, who had danced and flirted around each other from afar finally came together in person, two hearts and souls that had been aching and lonely met their mate. And they would now forge together through the many new, exciting, sometimes challenging, yet always engaging and interesting experiences that would next shape their lives.
But that's a story for another day~
AN: Hope you all enjoyed this one-shot that grabbed hold of me and would not let go until it was written~ Please review and let me know what you thought of it ^.^