The Train Ride
It was the week of Christmas holidays, the time of magic in which children reunite with their parents, the grandparents see the happiness on their grandchildren faces and people find their true love. For this special occasion Miura Haru was coming back from the design school in the UK to visit her family. That's why she was now in a train compartment which was heading for Namimori. The snowflakes were slowly falling from the sky and Haru was watching the beautiful scenery offered by the weather. She couldn't remember.
The door of the compartment opened. Then she saw a tall and very handsome young man who had shoulder length hair tied into a pony tail and the most unique green eyes Haru saw in her life. She couldn't help but stare, unconsciously she was thinking about her attributes and asking herself if she was noticed by the man. Haru was petite and slender with beautiful dark brown eyes and dark brown hair. Her skin was pale and she had a lovely complexion. Many of her peers said said she was very charming.
The man sat in front of her, putting his thick coat on sit the next to him. He was wearing a red dress shirt
under his black suit, complete with a black tie.
"Can you stop that?" his voice was deep, sounding like so melodic to her.
She blinked. "What?"
"Your staring is annoying." he said in a rude voice.
Haru finally realized she was staring at him since he entered. She blushed and took interest in watching the white blanket that was getting thicker by second. 'It was obvious there must be something wrong with him.' she thought sadly.
After some time she was about to doze off, when the smell of cigarets invaded her senses. She looked at the man and like she expected he was smoking a cigarette.
"Would you please put the cigaret out. Not only it's destroying your health, but it's affecting the people around you as well." she said in the most polite voice she could muster. Truth to be told she hated cigarets with passion since her favorite uncle died of lung cancer.
"Mind your own business." he said and continued smoking.
Haru was fuming inside. His cold tone and the fact he was still smoking made her angry, so she leaped out of her sit and took the cigaret out of his hand. Her triumph was short to live, because the train stopped suddenly and she lost her balance falling on the man. Who knew heels could be the cause of such thing.
She opened the eyes, which she closed when she began falling, cursing in her head every deity for this incident. She was now in his lap, her face inches closer to his surprised face. Once again she was admiring his forest green eyes.
She was brought back from his thoughts by his voice. "Would you mind getting of me?" he was clearly annoyed.
She got up, mumbled a sorry and took her place, looking out the window again and noticing they weren't moving.
"Dear passengers," said a metallic voice through the speaker and Haru paid attention to it. "due to the bad weather conditions the train will have a delay. We will try to solve the problem as fast as we can. Thank you for your understanding."
Haru slumped against the cushions, she really wanted to see her family and friends as soon as possible and she didn't know how big the delay was. Meanwhile the man was cursing under his breath and his eyes were glaring to the place on the wall where the speaker was.
Soon she got bored. Waiting, particularly without doing something, can do that to people. So she decided she needed a distraction from her boredom and unfortunately the man was the only person in the vicinity she could talk to.
"So you are going to visit someone for the holidays?" she asked, planing to start a conversation. When she saw he was ignoring her question, she began talking about herself. "Well I am going to visit my family. I haven't seen them since last summer, because I am currently studding design in UK. You know my dream since I was in elementary school was to become Japan's best costume maker."
At Haru's confession the man lifted an eyebrow and asked. "Are you stupid?"
She blinked not believing she heard the things right. "Excuse me?"
"I asked you if you are stupid. What kind of person would began telling her life and dreams to a complete stranger?"
"If you really want to know, I am an intelligent person." she said with conviction, but then added under her breath "Only if you ignore that incident in which I got stuck in a Godzilla costume or the time when I burn down the gym or..."
The man was trying to stop his laughing. Haru was clearly embarrassed by all of this even though she believed he had a nice laugh. Her temper got the best of her so she jumped on her feet glaring at the man and pointing an accusing finger at him. "Hey, Mister I am very serious." and she got her face closer to his to make sure he would not ignore her.
He was about to say something, when the door suddenly opened. Both of them looked towards the door. A girl with a food cart was about to enter and ask them if they are going to serve something, but stopped when she saw them, red in face she exited the compartment with a "I'm sorry for interrupting."
Both were confused. Haru looked back at the man only to blush at the closeness of their faces. She muttered an apology and sat back down. The man looked torn between being amused or annoyed.
Silence took over the room. Soon the night took over, the clouded sky taking in a darker color. Half an hour passed with them doing nothing and Haru felt like she needed to do something so she began to hum "Stillen Nacht" only to erase her boredom.
"You are singing out of tune."
"How do you know?" asked a stun Haru.
"I know some things about music."
"You do? Do you play an instrument?" she was curious since this was the first time the man said something about himself.
"I play the piano..." but he was interrupted by the sound of a cellphone. He took his phone out and proceed talking lively and colorfully to someone, explaining his current situation.
'So he is visiting his friends.' she deduced by the way he addressed to his interlocutor. 'I almost forgot, I must tell my parents I am going to arrive late.' She took her own phone and wrote a message to her family informing them that her train was having a delay.
After the man ended his call Haru was disappointed their conversation was cut short. She felt like she was soon going to do something stupid if the silence will continue when the door opened again. This time it was a group of singing Mexicans. They were singing a love ballad. Haru was grateful for this moment although she though this was very strange.
An awkward silence followed their song and the man was the first to speak. "What?"
The Mexicans' boss came forward and said. "Well meet this lady which gave us food and tolled us about this lovely couple in the train, so we felt like it was our job to inspirit the romantic atmosphere."
Haru was completely embarrassed by the misunderstanding that was created, meanwhile the man told the Mexicans in an undiplomatic to go bother other people. The atmosphere created by this event was unconformable for Haru so she wanted to dispel it.
"Well..." and the door opened for the third time that day and an old man from the train staff entered.
"Excuse me sir, but I need to conduct a search on your person."
"Why would you need that for?" asked the man clearly distressed. Haru didn't know why he acted that way, a search wasn't the end of the world.
"Since the train stopped a diamond was stolen from a rich lord from France. The suspect is a young man and the staff was asked to conduct a search on every person who meets the description."
"Well I can tell you I didn't left the compartment since the train stopped."
"I still need to conduct the search." said the man not believing his words.
"I can confirm his words. He was with me the hole time." Haru felt like she needed to help the man.
The old man was torn now, when the door was opened again and a young man also from the train staff, entered.
"The lord... called the search... off. It seams... that the diamond... was only misplace." said the young man between breaths.
"Then, I am sorry for disturbing you, sir." apologized the old man.
"Before leaving you might want to conduct a search on the young man over here." said Haru's companion.
Before the old man could ask what he meant the young man was running away, but he was tiered and soon the old man caught him. After a body search the diamond was found on his person. The old man thanked the silver haired man for his help.
"How did you know?" asked Haru when they were alone again.
"He lied when he said the lord called the search off. No one with a pride that big would recognize his mistakes so easily." The man didn't want to talk any more, so they sat in silence after that.
AND THE TRAIN FINALY START MOVING.
After half an hour Haru stand up preparing to get off the train and was surprised to see that the man was doing the same thing. They got off without saying a word to each other. She was wandering if he lived in Namimori as well and if she was going to see him again.
At the end of the day Haru admitted that this train ride was one of the strangest things she encountered and she was sure she would remember it all her life.
The next day her friend from Kyoko invited her to a party. Kyoko was her friend from high school. She met her in at the design high school in Tokyo and was delighted to find out they both live in Namimori. They soon become friends and still talked after Haru chose to study in the UK.
They arrived at the restaurant, Kyoko was happy to see her friends, but Haru stopped and stared at a silver haired man, the same man
They reaction was the same. "You."
"Haru-chan, did you know Hayato-san from before?" asked Kyoko.
"Well, yes, I meet him on the train yesterday."
.
.
.
THE END