The Taste of Melancholy
(n.) sadness; a sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness.
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When she awakes, her mouth is crusted with sleep, and her lids pull apart to squint in the dawn haze.
All her life, Haru Miura has adored sunshine. She'd adopted a ritual of peeking behind the blinds every school morning to assure a day of smooth sailing, devoid of any mishaps brought on by miserable weather. But she avoids the heavens' gaze now. It's blinding. The ocean of sky rolls on endlessly into murmurs of forever, and she's afraid she'll lose herself in taunts of momentary paradise.
The sunshine prods her awake from the hilltops, and she sits up sharply, glaring and wondering why everything in nature seems so vexingly content today.
Disgruntled behavior was no medicine; she could blame and grow irritated, but it wouldn't change anything. Her body drifted in limbo, caught in a state of numb immobility. Her mind, though, was in a trenchant state of chaos. She was the trembling lid on a pot of boiling water—a ticking bomb.
Though she has awakened from slumber, she feels all but alive.
There is nothing different about today. Today is Wednesday. No, wait. Yesterday was Wednesday. Or was that the day before...?
The soporific warmth of her blankets drain instantaneously as the cold whips by her bare legs, and she fights against the gravitational heat of her bed, throwing the covers back before she changes her mind. She stares fixatedly at a point on the wall, as if there was still a lime green calendar hanging by a single nail, like the one in her childhood room.
She needs a sense of time—but supposes it won't be any better to know how long they've been at it, futilely scraping away at the stains on the armor of pride, all in the name of "justice."
It would be less obvious—and perhaps less painful—if she were a part of it, indulging in the sense of unity.
But she's just there to clean up the mess, wipe up their blood, and stay behind like the good girl they take her for.
She doesn't need to lie to herself. Her smiles aren't hollow—they're incomprehensible. While appearing frankly happy, there is a small twitch in her lips, abstract like the way a watercolor brush stains the stark white paper with a slow, tantalizing color. It's like one of those hiccupping laughs—you're never really sure if its laughter or heaving sobs, and you don't dare to ask.
She hasn't given up. She's still gathering and absorbing value, because at the moment, she has nothing to give. There is a weight on her chest. And she has to build enough muscle to lift it.
She has to be the one to lift it.
There is a part of her that just wants to skip the damn process and be better already. But her obstinate resolve vanquishes those infantile wishes until they've forgotten how to speak.
She's done with mopping up the bloodbath. Don't they see that it's just an endless cycle?
She remembers how she used to enjoy a comedic Shoujo manga every now and then. What's life without a little love, if only in the form of fiction? How frivolous those cliché love stories now seemed. Sparkling eyes, rose patterns, and suave heroes—they made her stomach clench in ashamed distaste.
It had somehow given her the notion that if she waited long enough, someone would come riding in to save her.
Save her? From what? She lived a perfectly fortunate life. Thinking otherwise would have been ungrateful and ignorant.
Therein lay the crux of the problem. Everything was as it should be—but not as it could have been. She wanted—she didn't know what she wanted. She only knew the familiar ache of clenching lungs, the coveting want of being someone she could be proud of. She doesn't even feel the rough brush of fabric on skin as she slips on her clothes with the blank haste of a soldier on duty. Breakfast is sizzled, fried, and left on cool plates. Slipping into the grandiose library on the seventh floor below ground, Haru fast-walks to her destination, falling onto her bottom in a cross-legged position as she leans up against the shelf.
The Art of Digital Disease. She lets out a deep breath, and some of the dust from the cover of the giant tome drifts off into the dim beam of light from above. She tells herself that there is no going back. That she is willing to bear the title of a criminal—if it means she will be able to live for a cause and wield the necessitated power to support it.
Hours later, she feels a migraine coming on from the mass of information she has filed away in such little time. As usual, she ends her study session with a wipe of user history on her laptop. Then a whim seizes her by the throat, and she nearly chokes in excitement. If she could find a crack the Millefiore firewall, surely her work would amount to something.
It's discouraging when you try and try, and no one notices.
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His teeth gnaw on his bottom lip as he turns the page with a swiftness unbearable for the spine, and the yellowed page lets out a tearing rip.
It's true; his eyes are ice and his intonation is gruff—but his treatment towards books is somewhat of an anomaly. Information is something he respects. But damnit; he was going to have to request the old bookkeeper to patch the spine up again. The documents were falling apart, and they didn't have page numbers; so he'd pulled an all-nighter reordering the pages from memory and logic.
He curses while he nurses a nasty paper cut, then freezes when a dull 'thump' resounds from somewhere in the nonfiction section.
(There was only one dust-collecting shelf dedicated to fiction. Leisure reading was not on the list of their top priorities.)
Surreptitiously getting to his feet, he treads down the aisles between the shelves, glancing left and right. It's not so much of paranoia; but curiosity. Well, perhaps a smidgen of paranoia, too.
His steps come to a rest at the end of the section, and he frowns. Uri was engaging in intensive training with Ryohei and his box weapon, so unless an unsuspected intruder had infiltrated their ranks, there was a scant chance that any other guardian would wander into the library this late at night.
There—a sudden flicker of light. He pivots on his heel, heading towards the fleeting blink. The storm guardian stops dead in his tracks at the sight of the brunette in deep sleep, her head slack against the shelf and her laptop (which was emitting frequent flashes of updates and scans) clutched to her chest as if she was tucking herself into a space as small as possible, locking herself away in a portal to elsewhere.
Something about it just seemed sad.
His gaze trails to the book sprawled at her feet. He turns to the cover, and narrows his eyes. He'd never taken the woman for a hacker, but it appeared he was wrong.
She had a propensity for proving him wrong, it seemed.
The woman shudders in her sleep, and a thrill of goosebumps prickles down the length of her pale arms.
He supposed it was fairly chilly in the secluded corner, far from the reaches of the radiator near his work table.
If only he hadn't stumbled upon this mess. He would've just draped his jacket around her and left her immediate vicinity, but that would leave the issue of her awareness the next morning. But then, he wasn't particularly keen on the idea of lugging her all the way back to her room, either. Sighing, he bends down, threading his arms behind her back, and under her knees. He finds it immensely uncomfortable, as he's never carried a woman (especially one like her) and doesn't know if he's holding her right.
In the end, it doesn't matter. Waking in comfortable blankets with a sore back is still the optimal choice, the other being waking with a severe cold and an aching back.
Thankfully, her breathing pattern remains constant, and she mumbles no strange incoherence in her sleep. He thinks he imagines a pinch between her brows. Her lips contort into an agitated frown, and he feels a stab of fear that she might be waking.
She doesn't.
He reaches her door (the number is 456, her lucky one), and faces yet another dilemma. As he struggles to shift her weight onto one hand and open the door with the other, she sags in his arms.
Gritting his teeth, he enters her room and sets her down on the mattress, thinking for the umpteenth time that he must have lost his mind. He directs a frosty look of disdain her way, but his malice falters when she mumbles something oddly tantamount to 'Millefiore' and curls up on her right side, facing away from him.
He shuts the door quietly on his way out.
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Haru wonders why she smells of his cologne. She puts two and two together, and smothers the urge to laugh.
The courtyard beckons and she answers, deliberately neglecting her laptop. The unbroken pitter patter of rain echoes across the clearing, and she situates herself in a sacredly dry spot under a wise old tree. For a moment, she simply sits there and traces the wizened lines of age in the gnarled roots.
There is this portion of her mind that speaks out of ambivalent foolishness. She is offended when they fret too much over her (as they often do), but she is also offended when they trust her smile (she has many different kinds) enough not to pry it off and look her in the eye. Chastising herself for setting up insuperably high standards, she finds a moderately thick stick, and sketches an action plan into the dirt, going back in to re-etch her lines when the rain washes the marks into muddy nothingness.
She had squeezed herself into an irrevocable chink in the armor of Millefiore security. Disguising her internet connector as the name of theirs, she disrupted their connection, forcing them to reconnect using the same connector name (a double she actually set up), thus allowing her access to their web.
It had seemed too easy.
Something was wrong. Anything. Something always goes wrong. She hated that she had to question herself before embracing a slight bit of confidence.
But confidence led to arrogance, and overconfidence was an ultimate downfall she couldn't—wouldn't, afford.
Despite the million raindrops whispering consolations onto her soon glossily wet skin, she is chilled to the core.
The sacred shelter is no more, and her blouse presses icy murmurs against her shivers.
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"I figured loneliness was your forte, so." She shrugs, as if it's the most natural thing in the world to say.
"What color do you think loneliness is?"
He pins her in place with malachite green orbs, and she stiffens on the spot, sensing the chill sweeping up her spinal cord and breathing past the fine hairs on the nape of her neck. "You've been acting strangely out of character lately."
She leans on her left leg testily. "What makes you think you knew my character to begin with?"
"Indigo," he relents, after a moment of thought.
"Pardon?"
"The color of loneliness," he repeats, "I think it's indigo."
She is silent for some time. "I believe loneliness can be found in every color. Especially white." The brunette waits for him to toss her a scathing retort concerning the triviality of their conversation.
"You spend too much time in the infirmary," he states incisively, sipping at his coffee.
Whose fault do you think that is? Instead, she asks, "Why indigo?"
He abruptly slaps down a ten dollar bill (enough to cover both of their drinks), and leaves her in the café, sitting on a dilapidated wooden stool, gazing at the white walls that enclose her claustrophobia.
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Kyoko calls her in the dead of the night.
Her hands scramble for the base of the phone; bringing what she dimly guesses to be the speaker to her ear.
"Haru Miura, at your service," she mumbles, half-awake. It gradually dawns on her that the phone in her hands is not a phone at all, but a round compact disk. It is their emergency contact device.
An anchor of dread plunges into the pit of her stomach.
At least she's awake now.
"Haru, we need you over here," her friend rasps, her inflection oscillating between steady and quaking.
"Roger that," she intones steadily, stripping off her sleepwear and getting into gear.
She arrives on the scene, half-expecting the base to be sieged by armed soldiers with box weapons ready to pounce. Stepping inside, she swallows consciously at the eerie stillness. Kyoko spots her and rushes to her, grasping her hands in hers. "Haru, you—you've got to talk him out of it. He's lost it."
"What's the context?"
Momentarily unnerved by the brunette's collected countenance, the ginger-haired woman hesitates before plowing on, "Within the last 24 hours, he has sustained multiple bullet wounds to the stomach—and they won't stop bleeding." She pauses when she begins to stumble over her words. "He's—he's somehow got the absurd idea that he can tough it out and head back to the battlefield. But this isn't like the other times, Haru. I—I think he's drunk. If he went out to fight, he'd be walking into the hands of death. Bianchi-san is occupied with attempting to reason with him, but he won't have any of it. She's busy with him, so she can't tend to the others.
"We're low on fighting force, Haru." A twinge of hysteria crept into her tone.
And to think she had been sleeping soundly ten minutes before.
"Where is he now?" she demands.
"Room 104," Kyoko answers, palpably relieved.
She kicks the door open, bearing in mind that a gentle hand would not stop a prideful (and drunk) man of isolation. Bianchi nods, moving quickly past her, out the door, to attend to the others. It astonishes her that they place so much faith in her.
A spark of recognition flickers in his eyes, but considering their belligerent tendency, she's skeptical that it's a turn for the better.
The storm guardian stands (wobbles) to his feet, and draws out Sistema C.A.I. He loads the bullet with accustomed precision despite his muddled state—and something about the action seems all too mechanical; choppy—unreal. He's fought one too many battles. The familiar movement with which he loads the ammunition is disturbingly natural.
It's not right.
The metallic barrel of the weapon meets her eye level. "If you obstruct my intentions, I'll shoot."
Her feet are planted solidly to the ground, but the room is spinning. "Shoot. Have us both drown in blood, if you like; and accomplish nothing."
"I won't 'accomplish nothing' if you get your ass out of the doorway," he snarls.
Her image gradually enlarges in his vision, and he realizes she's closing in on him.
He fires the shot.
Silence reigns as the man starts to shake; from fury or fear, she wouldn't ever know. She wasn't sure if she herself was trembling or not.
A singed, smoking hole in the wall fell victim to his irrational ire, mere centimeters from the brunette's face.
He topples to the ground, utterly wasted.
Her nutmeg eyes cast downwards at his ashen face, and she murmurs, "...Because indigo is the night sky your mother will never again stand under."
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"Hayato."
"No."
"Hayato, you're going to regret this."
"God damnit, Aniki." A cracked, fractured noise rips from his throat. "I don't want to fucking talk to her."
"Even though she wants to speak with you?" she questions softly.
"She doesn't," he snaps harshly.
"She does," his half-sister contradicts. "But you'll never know for sure if you don't go." As if just realizing where they are (the infirmary, always the infirmary), Bianchi makes a mental note the repaint the walls with a different color. Why are all the walls white, anyway? It's not therapeutic in the least.
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He doesn't know how he'll conduct himself in her presence. He's certainly not groveling on both knees for her forgiveness, nor does he expect her to be magnanimous and graciously invite him in.
Agitated, he jabs the doorbell with his index finger and chews on an apology that will never see the light of day.
She peeks out behind the maroon colored front door, the embodiment of chariness. "Oh, it's you."
Endeavoring not to bristle at her flat tone, the guardian makes to reply, "...Uh, I—"
"—Come in, I'll get you something to drink."
Awkwardly sliding onto her quilt-infested couch, he waits, because it's all he can do. Something about this whole ordeal makes him feel powerless; exposed. This is her domain. The woman had moved out of the base and into her own apartment, since she was juggling two jobs at once; bearing the responsibility of technician and designer for the Vongola, as well as teaching a class of grade-school kindergarteners.
He supposed it was good for her, however taxing the double-career was. Being around children never failed to lighten her mood and chase away the shadows of Mafia life.
She slides a black coffee across the glass table, and his gut twists. He likes his coffee black.
"Thanks," he mutters, letting the warmth of the beverage excuse his lack of further comment.
"If you're here to apologize, don't bother."
Startled by her bluntness, his mouth unlatches before he can process what he's saying. "Don't shoot down what I have to say before I say it—you have no idea how much it took to bring myself here."
Of course, she takes this the wrong way. Her arms cross over her chest. "If you were reluctant to come, I suppose you'd be eager to leave. The door's just to your left."
His fists clench.
Her shoulders loosen and slump, and the stillness becomes a test of endurance. "Why were you drunk?" she finally asks.
He threads his fingers together under the table, looking down to his feet. "Ever heard of 'drowning reality in alcohol'?"
"Reality?" she echoes, as if unfamiliar with the word. But he knows she's just trying to reel out what he's left unsaid.
"My father has been sending me letters."
This catches her by surprise. "For how long?"
He glances at her then. "Two years."
She squeezes her eyes shut. "Jesus."
"Have you read any of them?" She knows he has. He would read them, even if he never picked up the pen to write back.
"Yeah."
She looks to his mug. "I'll go get you some more coffee."
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As always, she cuts straight to the chase. "Do you know why your father is suddenly communicating with you?"
His gaze drops to the coffee. It's somehow empty again, but the woman makes no move to refill it this time.
"He... would like me to visit."
Noting his avoidance of eye-contact, she inquires, "Do you think you could do that? We could fly you over anytime."
But it's not an issue of transportation. "Just... let me think about it."
Lowering her voice, she states, "It's been two years. His birthday is coming up soon."
His eyes flicker up to meet hers.
He doesn't ask how she knows this. And he can't retreat after he's come out of his way to fix things. "I'll pay him a visit after this next job."
Her expression darkens. "You'd better not purposely get yourself hurt to avoid seeing him." Don't get yourself hurt, period. Is that too much to ask for?
Laughing softly, he notes, "So it's alright if I die, but not before pleasing my father."
"You know that's not what I meant," she sighs, sending him a level stare.
He nods to her, "Have you eaten yet?"
Reflexively, she answers, "Yeah, I have." The gurgle of her stomach doesn't betray her this time.
"Of course; that's why you're on, what, your sixth cup of tea?" But he knows—he knows her.
Coloring, she slides her gaze to the potted plant on her windowsill, mumbling, "Remind me why you're here again?"
He gestures to her cheek, fighting a cringe at the view of the charred skin. "How's the wound?"
She snorts, "It's just a burn." Fixing him with a delighted smirk, she continues, "But here's an idea—I know a way you can make it up to me."
And because she's Haru, and some things will never change, she has the grand opening flier of the newest cake shop in town in her left pocket. Unfolding the advertisement, she hands it to the faintly amused man. "I don't have any plans tonight," she intimates, feigning a yawn. "I could always just crack open another bowl of top-ramen and call it dinner, though..." She's hoping he'll give in, as she's sick of artificial chicken flavor.
After memorizing the address of the venue, he stands. "You're impossible," he mutters, shaking his head.
"I could say the same about you."
But she's smiling as she says it.
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With the knit shawl around her shoulders and the lonesome moon for company, she stares up into the blood red sunrise, marveling at the color's duality.
"Geez, are you an insomniac or something? I swear you're up before the birds."
Without turning, she observes curiously, "Red is such a proud color. It just has to be garish and captivating, even when it's all just vainglory that'll dry up to be a washed-out, pitiful stain in the carpet. It just never leaves."
"What are you, a morbid poet?" he quips sarcastically as he leans against the stair rail opposite of the woman sitting on the porch. "Why the long face? You countervailed the Millefiore by destroying their web security, didn't you?"
"Please, don't say that."
"Would you rather I euphemize your contributions?"
"It's not that." A crease furrows between her eyebrows.
"Then explain to me why you're not satisfied. Aren't you always griping about not contributing enough?"
Making a point to fix him with a glare before responding, she remarks defensively, "It's not as satisfying as I thought it'd be. Nobody asked for an all-out brawl. But that's what I was condoning, wasn't I? By hacking their system, I obtained data that we exploited for militant purposes."
He leans towards her with an arm outstretched. "Look, I don't know how to break this to you, but in this business, people are going to die. No matter what."
She buries her head between her knees. "I know that! I know. But we're in control of the gun; the trigger doesn't pull itself." Whenever she is in doubt, he observes, she tends to pack herself into a tiny space. As if people weren't already infinitesimal specks in the galaxy.
"Maybe," he says, and his voice cracks, "Somewhere out there, is a Utopia; and no one has to die at the hand of human depravity. But that world sure as hell isn't this world."
"No, it isn't," she concedes, and uncurls in a mass of limbs and blanket, sitting on a frozen wooden step beside a man whose simple existence has done wonders to her sanity—in both the good and bad sense.
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"What are you doing?"
She doesn't respond, humming blithely in lieu of acknowledgment.
Again, "...What are you—?"
She whirls around; golden flecks of mischief alight in her eyes as she crams a cookie into his parted mouth.
"—Nmphh—" An indignant sound scrapes out from his throat, and he swallows the pastry with a bob of his Adam's apple. "What the hell was that?"
"You aren't allergic to soy milk, are you?" A quizzical frown crosses her face.
Thrown off by her digression, he snorts, "Oh, for god's sake—no—and what are you cooking for? Missing your childhood days of pastry-obsession?"
"For your information," She says, waving the eggbeater in his face, "that pastry-obsession is eternal. And this batch is for the kids at school. Valentine's Day is coming up, so I'm planning to hand these out." Turning back to the oatmeal raisin cookies (there were kids allergic to chocolate and peanut butter in her class), she ventures, "So how was it? Absolutely delectable? Everything you ever dreamed of tasting in a cookie and more?"
Under his breath, he grumbles, "It's not bad."
"Good," she murmurs, "So you won't object to getting more of these when cupid-day arrives."
"Valentine's Day is overrated," he mutters, loosening his tie to cool off from the flush creeping up his neck. "It's just a glorified excuse for consumerism to inflate with empty flattery in the form of boxed chocolates and red wine."
"Maybe so." A stretch of silence follows, until she comments, "Why are you looking at me like that? Make yourself useful and grab some eggs from the pantry, will you?"
He doesn't waver on this one. "Forget it."
"Oh, have I insulted your pride by asking you to participate in actions of a stereotypical housewife? My bad. Why don't you run along and beat yourself up in training? I'm sure there'll be some cookies left over after I distribute them to everyone else."
Unbelievable, he thought.
Her cheeks had a rosy sheen to them; and he supposed it wasn't too heinous of a crime to bake cookies if it revived a sense of spirit within her.
As long as he was not involved.
"Nice try. I'll pick you up at seven."
She turns, but it's too late. "Don't think that you can just—"
Her apartment door opens and closes.
She slips on her oven mittens, and glares at a particularly deformed cookie in the batch, muttering, "That jerk."
They knew each other best, after all.
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