Was stalking some people, and I noticed [again] that lots of RimaHiko fics involve trees; however, strangely, nothing about willow trees. I personally love willow trees [they're my favourite type of tree], and I think really, really, really, weirdly. So, I guess, this is the result.
Pairing: RimaHiko [sort of]
Rating: K+
Tunes: No Time Left For Confusion ~ Your Favourite Enemies.
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"Your body's warm, but I don't care
I'm standing there, right next to you you
When dirty lies are bright and blue… "
She closes her eyes, resting her head on the willow tree behind her, drawing her small legs up to her chest. She turns the volume up on her Zune, letting the words wash over her, clear her mind. She lets the music invade her; course through her and clean the red-hot anger and baby-blue tears from her, fill her ears with words dripped in love and courage; rather than words strangled by hate and fear.
She doesn't know how long she sat there for, replaying that one song over and over again, in a unbroken cycle. Playing over and over; unchanging and strong.
Her eyes snap open when she feels someone else sit next to her, breaking the cycle. She tilts her head to stare at him, because, even though they were both sitting, he was still taller than her.
"And what," she snaps, even though she isn't feeling up to it, she has a reputation to uphold, "are you doing here?" she emphasizes the 'you'.
"Saw you," he replys simply, "thought I'd come over." She can barely hear him over the music. He looks down at her, smiling slightly. "Your hairs gonna get dirty, you know." He comments, letting his gaze travel down onto her long golden hair. She follows his gaze, looking down at her hair, spilling out around her, littered on the ground.
She gives a non-commental noise – not a grunt, she was far above that – and moves her head back slightly, so that she was staring ahead. Again, she doesn't know how long she sat there, not hearing anything, not seeing anything, simply sitting in a cycle broken merely by time.
She feels a poke on her cheek; and she immediately rips the earbuds out of her ears and glares up at the creature that had commited the offending act known as poking. One [more] thing to never do to Rima Mashiro: poke her.
"What do you want?" she hisses at him, staring into his ocre eyes. Then she sees the expression on his face. He's looking at her ... sadly? She doesn't know. But in any case, she doesn't like the expression on his handsome face.
She tones down her glare until she's merely looking at him, albiet with a odd examining look on her face. She asks again: "what?" She shifts on the ground, uncomfortable under his odd gaze.
"You looked sad." He tells her, unashamedly, unembarressed. "But you also look happy. Was just wondering why."
She merely stares dumbly up at him. How do you reply to that? Noone tells you you look sad. It just doesn't happen these days. People pretend not to notice. That's the way things were. You just pretend that the problems didn't exist, they weren't there. You pretend not to notice the pressure that's slowly forcing you to bend, bend, bend, intil you-
snap
She forces her mind into the present. He holds in his hands a twig from one of the overhanging braces from the tree, and he was currently pulling it apart, leaf by leaf. She doesn't say anything, she just watches his lithe hands slowly rip the tree apart, bit by bit.
When he finally finished stripping the twig from it's leaves, he twirled it over and over in his hand. He looks at her, after a while. He looks at her looking at his hands.
She doesn't know how long they sat there like that for. Finally, he asks her, "what?" He shifts on the ground, uncomfortable under her gaze.
"That was my question."
"We're going in circles." He smiles at her. Still twirling the twig in his hands. "Do you like willow trees?" he asks suddenly.
"…Yes. Do you?"
"Hm…" He seems to ponder it, "yes. Willow trees are my favourite."
Hers too. "Why?"
"Why?" he echoes.
"Why are they your favourite?" she clears up her question.
"Hm… they, how do I say this?" he, once again, thinks about his words. "They're so, strong."
She turns and looks at him, eyes wide. He stares back at her, confused.
"That's kinda like my reason."
"Huh?"
"The reason I love willow trees. They don't break."
She drops her façade, and plugs on earbud back into her ear, turning down the volume on her Zune, so that she can hear both Nagihiko and the song.
"Well, that is one of their strong qualities. Willow trees, I mean." He states.
"Isn't that what makes them different, though? Like, think of all the things that break: plates break, voices break, waves break," she continues on for quite a while, simply talking on about, well, nothing really, something lighting up in her eyes, and he just stares at her, "… bones break, hearts break…" She trails off into silence, all the fervor gone out of her eyes.
"You think things start out perfect?" He asks her, curling his arms around his legs, his long, purple –almost black- hair brushing the floor. "I think things always start out a bit broken. Y'know, just one flaw, at least."
"Oh?" she wonders why he thinks so.
"Yeah. Then you just gotta wait from someone to come along and stick a band-aid on that small little crack, and well, as long as they're there, you'll just heal right up. D'you know what I mean?" he doesn't look at her.
"I … I don't think so." How can things start off broken? Doesn't someone have to come along and break it? "Why do you think things start off broken?"
"Well, can they really start off perfect?"
"Um… yes? No? Sure?"
"We always make mistakes. Like, a child, is never ever 'perfect', right? You have to teach them what to do and when to do it, and even then they still make mistakes. We never start out perfect. We just don't."
"What about hearts? They don't start off broken. Someone's gotta break it for you."
"Oh? I thought someone's gotta be your other 'half', and make you feel alright."
"Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean that there's a mistake from the start."
"But what about when you girls all say 'I'm feel like there's something missing. I need someone with me!'" he imitates a high, falsetto voice. Very mature.
"Well, what of it?"
"My point being," he returns to his normal, mellow, voice, "the heart isn't perfect. It doesn't start off that way, and let's face it, it'll never be. There'll always be a small flaw, mistake, crack, whatever you want to call it. Then, if you'll pardon the cliché, you wait for that perfect someone. And your heart isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn close."
Once again, they're sitting in that small cycle of unbroken time, in their own little world of microscopic flaws and soothing voices. Who knows how much time passed?
"Has your heart ever been broken – I mean, fixed?" she asks him, looking far out into somewhere.
"Do you really want to know?" he turns, shifts his entire body so that it's facing her.
"…What do you mean?" she turns to look at him warily.
"Do you want to know?"
"Well, I asked. So, yeah, I guess." She looks back out to somewhere.
"Well, that all depends."
Her head snaps back to him, "what does that mean?"
"It means what it means."
"It depends … so what about right now? Is your heart currently fixed?"
He smiles, "Right now? I think so. But it all depends."
"Stop saying that! Just give me a yes or no answer!" She mutters.
Back to the unbroken cycle.
"I wish I could open my eyes"
"What about you? Is your heart fixed?" What's this? Is that a note of carefully veiled anxiety in his voice that she hears?
She smiles, "Well, that all depends."
He tilts his head back, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. "Touché, Rima." And with that, he grabs the ear bud that she was twirling in her hand, and plugs it into his ear; consequently moving closer to her.
They sit there in their own broken little world of unbroken willow trees, unanswered questions, broken time, relaxed voices, and the background music of two flawed hearts mending slowly, slowly, slowly.
"I'm standing there, right next to you
Your body's warm, but I don't care"
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First off: PLEASE. Do not call this a songfic. It isn't. Honestly. I just used this song that I really like in it.
And holy cow this took me four days to write. Srsly. This is the longest one-shot I've ever done. And not to mention I tried to do it in present-tense. Difficult man. And my computer doesn't seem to want to use spell-check :'D
So if there are any mistakes grammatically/spelling wise, please do point it out! I looked it over but I may have missed something.
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Please visit my fic 'p l a y i t l o u d e r' , it's a personal favourite of mine xD
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Reviews too.