Kaichō wa Maid-sama!

Hey guys! Here's a one-shot, because HAPPY BIRTHDAY USUI TAKUMI! (First boy crush ever since I learned how to open my eyes)

Kudos to Fujiwara Hiro for bringing forth a dude who inspired me to cook eggs :D Anyway, I hope you enjoy this slightly fluffy thing. I found it a little too cheesy for my tastes, and somehow Takumi POV was ooc(?) and Misaki's lines were probably different from the anime/manga too.

Well, whatever. Happy reading my lovely bees~!

Of Prayers and Firsts

"I―I hate you! I hate your kind―I hate everything I can hate about you! Stupid, stupid, idiot Usui! You'll regret you were ever born with your stupid, stupid mouth! Hey! Don't you dare walk out on me!"

Ayuzawa Misaki was the first to hate me.

Although my grandfather disregarded me as a mere accident―which I really was, biologically speaking, he didn't hate me. I was not blessed enough by the higher heavens to be showered with irate. Apathy was what I received from the old man ever since he found out about his daughter's affair with the 'too-wise-for-his-own-good' butler, and apathy is what I will receive even in the next life, when I finally meet said daughter. Over there, I will probably still be deemed an inconvenience, and he will still probably care only about the family's appearance. My name will only be called when he reminds me of my "meddling father", as well as when he tells me to keep my mouth shut about having connections with them. Even in the next life, I will probably keep my reputation as a nuisance.

But anyhow, Ayuzawa Misaki was the first to declare her utter dislike for me, which is why I made sure that I would entertain her hatred. It was a funny thing at first―a good way to kill time. She looked stupid whenever her nostrils would enlarge in agitation, and I can still recall her idiotic scowl whenever she would see something yellow or green―something I was sure that reminded her of me.

It was only when I decided that she was more than a short-tempered horse that I realised why I wanted to get under her skin. I wanted my name to be a parasite in her head. I want to make the fine hairs on her skin stand on end the moment she hears my voice, all because she is so irritated by me that she can no longer keep her cool. I wanted so much to frustrate her―anger her―until all she could think of is how to destroy me. Until all that is in her mind is a certain Usui Takumi. Until everything drives her mad about me.

Masochistic―or even sadomasochistic―you would call it, but I hadn't known then, that like the characters in sappy rom-coms, I was whipped.

I later knew I wanted to keep on pushing her over the boundaries because it was the first time that I was acknowledged―

"That Usui Takumi from Seika High is a total hottie! You think he'll agree to go out with me?"

"101 would date."

"Rumour has it that Usui-senpai is part English! So his blond hair is natural?!"

"I wanna be friends with Usui-san! I heard that he was a very strong guy! Would be really great if we could hang out so he could teach me how to lift."

"Usui Takumi is a very smart guy, I'll give him that. But I can never forgive him for stealing (in my defence, no one was stolen) my girlfriend. Douchebag."

―in a way that didn't have anything to do with my looks or capabilities.

Shave my head bald. Gouge my "brilliant emeralds" out. Roast my brain and feed it to the eels.

Sure, things wouldn't be the same and I wouldn't be as good in my craft of infuriating the prez, but Ayuzawa Misaki would still continue to hate me. The number of confessions that I receive on a daily basis would decrease below zero, but she would still continue to hate me, because that's just how Ayuzawa is.

She'll put her mind into it once, and she won't be able to stop. She can't stop, because that's what makes her Ayuzawa Misaki.

Fast forward to when I saw her in a maid outfit, and although I admit that I find her whole nostril-enlarging-thing cute, this one was immediately became first in my memory album of "Ayuzawa Misaki's different personas". If I hadn't known her prior to that night, I would have found it interesting to spill the beans about the kaichou being a maid in a revealing outfit just to see her reactions, but something told me―way beyond the depths of my hormonal and extraterrestrial heart―that I wanted to be the only one who knew "Misa-chan". That specific Misa-chan whose expression would change from "Okaerinasaimase, goshujin-sama!" to "What in the chuck of fucks are you doing here, you creepy pervert?" the moment I would make my grand entrance in the café.

I wanted to be the only one, despite her weird yet extremely rude sense of "foul language", to know the president's biggest secret, and I knew anyway, that despite her weird yet extremely rude sense of "foul language", her cursing my name under and above her breath is half-hearted, because that's just how Ayuzawa is.

"...so now you probably know why I don't want anyone to know about my job. This position that I've worked hard for... Being a kaichou is little to you, and I assume that you probably won't care, but all of this―everything that I have worked so hard for―it will all go to waste... And I will let my family down like my father did."

Ayuzawa Misaki was the first to let me know how it was like to feel.

Apathy I was given, and apathy I only learned to give.

But Ayuzawa made me feel a lot of the first emotions that I felt from a few words she said that night. It was the first time that a promising death threat from her pink lips had not left when she spoke to me, but that was also the first time, ironically, that a part of me had died.

I felt angry. I was angry at her father for being the reason why she had to break her back to be the backbone of her family.

And then I was guilty.

I was guilty for even considering about how her reactions would be like if I (indirectly and indiscreetly, obviously) told a soul about Maid Latté.

I was guilty for finding the slightest bit of happiness in the probable fact that I was the first to know about this side of her―maybe even before the pink-haired girl and the one with the glasses did.

But what killed me the most, was the reason behind the first time that I felt... sad.

I felt sad, because Ayuzawa looked so sad that night that she didn't look like Ayuzawa anymore.

A student wouldn't even finish saying "Kaichou", and I could already envision her in all her glory. Something would be seeping out of her―something like an aura of a thousand hungry weasels. I could imagine an angry horse or weasel or whatever it was that came to mind first whenever her title would be mentioned, with more strength in her little toe than any student could have in their whole body. That's what "Ayuzawa-kaichou" looked like, but now, she was someone else I did not know.

She didn't look weak at all, and she kept a strong front, but she was sad, and it ached beyond words to see that.

Since then, Ayuzawa Misaki was no longer the girl who could think up the best bland profanities in the planet, nor was she the noisy council president.

Ayuzawa Misaki, to me, was the first. The first I've acknowledged as someone. She was too many things in one that I can only say that. She was the first person who showed me―as cliché as it sounds―what it was like to feel. She showed me what it was like to be acknowledged. Not because you were tall or because you were a glamorous walking book of books, but because you were you.

"Usui is...!"

She had a lot of terminologies following those two words regarding who I was, and despite her being too harsh with her words, I liked every one of who Usui Takumi was as she would put it. Because she, in some depths of truth, was right.

Ayuzawa Misaki knew who Usui Takumi was, even if she was not aware that she had known at all.

I felt... happy.

I felt lot of things that I didn't know before, and that was when I knew that I wanted more...

So much more.

I wanted―more than anything in the world―Ayuzawa Misaki's love.

The first time I longed to be loved. And not by someone of my blood.

It was the girl who proved that I was just as bad as anyone was, because if one would comment on how "perfect" my teeth looked, Ayuzawa would probably tell me to floss, because apparently, there was a popcorn kernel stuck in between my "ugly teeth".

She was the first to acknowledge my imperfections, and because of that, I felt human. I felt alive. Insanely alive that I was scared to be living.

Too scared to be living.

"I―I like you!"

I was speechless. Not for the first time―she already managed to do that since our first encounter when she slapped me for rejecting "too harshly". It was a cold stinging slap, and I had been shocked for the first time.

But I was speechless, that all I could say was, "I know."

I was speechless―literally―when she pulled me towards her with the muffler that she knitted for me, enthralling me in a kiss that said much more than she did afterwards.

And I was happier than I had ever been.

If I was insanely alive then, I am insanely living now. And if dying was a good option then, it is something that I am afraid of now.

I am afraid to die, because I know that it is only in this life that the loving warmth on Ayuzawa's lips will not leave me.

I am afraid to die, because even if I have memorised the ever-changing hues as the light shines in her eyes, I will no longer see them once I die. The other side can be dark or bright, but Ayuzawa will not be there.

So I prayed every morning, before I leave any place, before I start on something important, and before I go to sleep, that I won't die any sooner. I can't ask for forever, but I could ask for whatever anyone could give me. The longest time I could ever have to live in this planet―I would do anything to have it.

Ayuzawa Misaki made me want more than her love.

She made me want to live and start living.

So I want to live as long as I can, because it is only in this life, I believed, that I can feel Ayuzawa's love.

"Uhh, h-happy birthday! I didn't know what your species liked to eat, so I baked three cakes! The orange one is kinda burnt, but still consumable. Y-You don't have to eat any of them, but I just felt like baking them all anyway."

Stupid, stupid male-hating tsundere.

"That guy Usui―he's mine!"

But I love her―in the past, in the present, and in the future tense. I loved, I love, and I will love Ayuzawa Misaki, and I am more than happy that she knows that.

"I do."

Two words have never had so much meaning in them, and said words had never brought me to a state of existence in which one does not know how to think. In which one can not even think about being able to think.

It didn't make any sense if you said it aloud, but what mattered was that it made sense in my head, even if I was practically on my last strand of sanity.

Beyond being speechless and on the verge of being mute, I kissed Misaki.

Usui Misaki.

I am happy that I can no longer care about anything but the fact that she's here. That Misaki is with me, and that she chose me.

I still pray every day of my life, and I pray that I live the longest I can live.

"I love you, Takumi."

She can manage to say those words without flinching now, but she still blushes, and I pray that I will forever feel her love no matter which life I am in, and that I will always see her blushing too.

"Stupid Takumi."

She never forgets to insult me, and I never forget to make her want to yank her hair out. I continue mark her existence with my love, just as she continues to do with mine. She still yells at me, and she still calls me a pervert―even in front of our two children. Sara is seven and Rui is five, and for some reason, they had learned a few words which Misaki found rather disturbing than praise-worthy.

"Try and taint the kids more than what you've already done, Usui Takumi, and I swear to everything and everyone, you will forget everything about being a pervert."

"So if I don't, you'll tolerate me being a pervert?" I laugh, and it only angers her more.

She shrieks like a cow as she gives up and throws a pillow at me instead.

But she's a cute cow.

If she was a cow, she'd be the cutest, alright.

Another time-skip, and I remember how much I prayed from the time that I found out about my feelings for her that I would live long enough to drown in her love. I prayed to live the longest that a man could just so I could feel her arms wrapped around me, and to wrap mine around her as well. I prayed that the world would be kind enough to let me love her as much as I could. I prayed that night that our child would be born safe and healthy, and I prayed that I would be there to raise all of our children too.

Whoever they are, or whoever was up there―they heard my prayers.

It was the first time my prayers were heard, and I know that I cannot complain.

I am still alive, and I can still see her blushing. Our third child was born healthy, the very same night that Misaki died from giving birth.

I can still see the red rush of blood in Misaki's cheeks―and I thought that by praying to see it always, it would mean that she would still be alive. That she would be living with me.

But I am living―just as I had prayed for.

And yes, I can still see her blush―like I prayed for.

It is there when I sleep.

It is there for me to see in our children whenever they get flustered.

It is there. And I believe that it always will be.

It is only Misaki that isn't.

.

.

My prayers were heard, because her love still surrounds me. It is in the laughter that fills the room whenever I would play with the kids. It is in the morning when I drink my tea; throughout the day when I work or spend time with our children; and in the night when I noiselessly cry myself to sleep. It is the least that I can do, because a man cannot stay strong enough to withhold his feelings and keep them buried. One must let them out, and I can only do that when they are all asleep, because I know that they are longing for their mother too. Even Hiro who has never met his mother―I know that I cannot fill the void that resides in his eyes as he searches for her, only to find me. I cannot add to their grief, so I keep mine to myself.

I cannot deny the fact that I will always reach out to my side the moment I wake to feel for her, only to realise that her side of the bed is empty and cold.

I cannot deny that I sometimes still expect her to say "Okaeri" when I arrive from work, only to be met by Cedric's nephew's greeting. I do not hire maids, simply because I cannot and will not bring myself to.

I cannot deny the fact that I will never stop loving Ayuzawa Misaki―Usui Misaki―in whichever life that I am present.

And I cannot deny the fact that her body is lifeless.

But I can go against anyone's saying that when one dies, so does his or her love. That it is only logical, because when you're dead, you can no longer do anything.

This is untrue.

Misaki's love will forever be with me―in whichever life that I am present.

And I know that it will always be.

おわり

A/n: This was originally a fluffy drabble, but it somehow ended up like this :D Please please tell me what you think! (AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN TO THE ONE AND ONLY PERVERTED OUTER-SPACE ALIEN!) じゃね！