Secret Names

Rating: T

Author: Me

Disclaimer: I own Sunrise and Mai-HiME (this is a lie).

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Chapter 1

It was one of those afternoons that made Shizuru glad her parents weren't home. She didn't look it but she was tired. It had been a long day.

Morning classes had been alright, but there was an air raid drill just before lunch. A few students felt that their class being moved to the hall, were roll would immediately be taken, was a perfect opportunity to sneak away and have a smoke. So she, as per her duties as the Student Council President, left Reito in charge and went to look for them. And of course Haruka had insisted on 'assisting', which made the whole endeavour that much more tiresome.

When she finally found the missing students, and discovered why they had snuck off in the first place, she was furious. Though apparently not as much, nor nearly as vocally, as Haruka. The other girl had almost deafened the truant students with her yelling, calling them worthless ingrates who had no respect for the school, nor of the measures it took to ensure their safety. Were they so quick to forget the bombing of the third dorm building last year? This last little factor made Shizuru pause. She normally wouldn't have been angry at all with the students; the school really overdid it when it came to the number of air raid drills they had, the procedure itself was not difficult to remember, and she could well understand the students' boredom.

The bombing had changed that. Early last semester a small group of planes had flown over, around midnight, and attempted to blow the school away. For the most part it seemed like they were just trying to draw attention to themselves, they tore up a lot of the mountainside around the school and a few sections of the schoolground. One stray bomb landed on a dorm. Many were injured but very few died. The planes were identified as Korean, though the Korean government denied any involvement, citing non-government organisations as those responsible. This was their story whenever such occurrences happened, and under international law so long as the Korean government denied involvement, and there was no proof to the contrary, war could not be declared.

The incident itself little effected Shizuru, who lived with her parents, knew no one who had died or been injured, rarely ventured near the dorms, and had slept through the whole thing. Certainly it was shocking, but a few months later Division 9 found and apprehended the culprits, the dorm was rebuilt and everything went back to normal. Though apparently not, if today was any indication. It bothered Shizuru to realize that the incident shook her more deeply then she had originally believed, and she worried over it for the rest of the day the way a dog attends an old bone, ever gnawing but getting nowhere.

When the school day finally ended it was time for a student council meeting. The one that afternoon was longer than usual, and full of overblown ideas put forward by Haruka (and Yukino), to be subsequently pulled apart and dismissed by Shizuru and Reito.

It was the sum of these things that left Shizuru, by the time she got home, tired and glad her parents weren't about. She wandered up to her bedroom and put her bag down in its corner. She just wanted to lie down and rest for a bit, or maybe make some tea and drink it out on the balcony. As she thought these things her eyes briefly, accidentally, slid over the face of her computer. She stopped. Shizuru stared, examining what she saw over and over, half believing it wasn't real. Praying it was. In the inbox that remained open on her computer screen sat a single new message. And on that little blue line, the sender; Duran. Duran, handle of Itsuki Akagawa. The boy she met three years ago on an internet forum. The boy who was her best friend. The boy she hadn't heard from in weeks. The boy she was in love with. The boy she never met.

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When she was 15 Shizuru grew curious as to how Jap-sea conflict series were perceived by the public. These were television series about the 'Japan-sea conflict', the undeclared, underground war between Korea, Japan and Russia, the three countries bordering the Japan sea. They were surprisingly prevalent for a country whose government was so secretive about the conflict itself. They were all, also, very much the same; young Japanese men and women struggling against the evil forces of Korea and Russia while espousing the greatness of Japan and solving mysteries, outwitting enemies and so forth. The level of characterization and depth of motivation these evil forces got ranged from moderate to none, depending on the show.

Shizuru understood that the tiny amount of information released to the public meant these series had little to no grounding in reality, and she was curious to see how many others thought this way. This, of course, was back when schools were still legally allowed to teach what 'propaganda' meant. The girls who followed her around talked about the characters in Jap-sea shows as if they were real people, but they talked about characters from everything that way, so they were no help. Shizuru turned to the internet, which was full of blistering arguments on the subject.

One of the forums she ended up at contained a discussion comparing two of the most popular Jap-sea shows, 'Yukimura's Case' and 'The Division'. 'Yukimura's Case' was about a Kyoto PI, Yukimura Oshii, trapped in Korea, who solved crimes to pay the rent. These crimes always involved the JS conflict in some way. Realistic, engaging characters and intriguing mysteries were considered the main reason why it was so popular.

'The Division' was about the strong, handsome, intelligent young men of Division 9, who were sent in to deal with the toughest cases of the JS conflict. It's main appeal was a clever plot and well toned-young men running around in tight clothes.

Shizuru suspected that Haruka watched it.

One factor frequently bought up was that, unlike Mr. Yukimura, Division 9 was actually real. The precise characters may not exist, but there was a Division 9, and it did deal with the toughest cases in the JS conflict. It had appeared suddenly in the media several years ago, and from then on seemed to be the main force behind all of Japan's major victories. People loved Division 9. Becoming a member is what children wanted to be when they grew up, fansites popped up all over the internet, 'Support Division 9' slogans appeared on a popular new line of encouragement posters. It wasn't just a Division, it was the Division.

Except that it didn't actually exist, as Shizuru's government official uncle gleefully informed them over dinner one night. He had, out of curiosity one day, looked into military finances in greater depth then his job required. And, while he legally could not tell them what he found, he could tell them what he did not find, and that was any record of a Division 9. This news only cemented what Shizuru had begun to suspect, that Division 9 was just a character made up by the government, to boost the morale of the Japanese people and somewhat personalise the distant, impersonal army. She also suspected that this was the purpose of the television series (though officially the government could not influence the media beyond banning items from air), to give a face to the thing that had itself become the face of the army. As it was, people got very angry at Shizuru when she suggested any of this.

Although that forum was an utter failure in terms of her original goal, it was where she met Duran for the first time. At that very discussion in fact. He showed up suddenly out of nowhere and proceeded to argue with everybody. He seemed to think 'The Division' was the superior of the two series simply because it had more explosions, but also argued in her defence that Division 9 did not really exist. He was a clever arguer, and was never without a rebuttal for whatever his opponents said. Pretty imaginative when it came to insults too. Their first real interaction occurred when she spoke to him directly

Kiyohime: Ah, they still do not believe us Duran, whatever shall we do?

And he replied thus

Duran: Oi, oi, oi! We? Who said I was on your side?

She proceeded to tease him about being all alone, and he pointedly ignored her for the rest of the discussion. Shizuru found this greatly amusing, and went to check out his profile, which was pretty basic. It read

Name: Duran

Age: 17

Occupation: Student

Likes: Guns, motorbikes, puppies, mayonnaise

Dislikes: Other people

She laughed out loud when she saw it, thinking 'is this guy for real?' She ended up hanging around those forums for a few more weeks, much longer then she had intended. Much longer indeed, then it had taken for her interest in the subject to wane into nothingness. She stayed there for Duran.

Back then she only found him interesting. He could be found in various discussions, his views changed frequently, from one discussion to the next, so it seemed like he didn't believe in any of them. But every now and then she would notice something that he never, or rarely changed his mind on, and would think, with small feelings of triumph that she still remembered, ahh, so this is what you really believe. Over the weeks they interacted more and more, eventually messaging each other privately. At first he acted tough and aloof, and irritated by her overtures of friendship, but it didn't take long for that to melt away, and she really liked the person she saw underneath.

Shizuru finally stopped going to the forum when they exchanged emails and began talking on msn. She found out that his parents worked in business and travelled a lot. He stayed at boarding school and rarely saw them. She began looking forward to coming home in the afternoon, just so she could talk to him. He would ask her how her day was, and was always interested in the answer, even if she just talked about everyday things. He didn't talk about what he did very often and was generally sketchy on the details. When he did actually tell her about his day he didn't use his friend's names when he spoke about them, they were all just "my friend", but over time she recognised a few of them. There was a motherly one with a large bust, which was often the focus of jokes, an irritating underclassmen he had a love-hate relationship with, another boy he once described as "useless", yet truly did not seem to dislike, an energetic, dependant underclassmen, and a very gossipy girl who might just be more than one person.

Eventually she convinced him that they should swap photos of each other. She sent a few pictures of herself to him, and he sent one back. The view was from the shoulders up, he appeared to be wearing a biker jacket, and she could just make out the curve of the top of a bike helmet under his arm. He had the loveliest face she had ever seen. It seemed to radiate strength and vulnerability at the same time, just like he did. He had short midnight blue hair, the cut was intentionally ragged, going for a scruffy look. It didn't work, even from the photo she could tell his hair was so smooth and straight he probably never had a knot in his life. The centre of all this had been his eyes. Green, gorgeous eyes. They looked like the type of eyes in which someone can read many things. But not here, with only a snapshot that revealed nothing but a young man smiling wanly back at the camera. Sometimes Shizuru would bring the photo up onto her desktop, just so she could stare at it. That should have warned her, but she was good at pushing away her feelings and pretending they weren't there.

One day, a few months later, she was telling Duran a funny story, something amusing someone had done. Nothing important, she couldn't even remember what it had been or who it was about. However instead of responding with typed laughter, a play symbol appeared in the msn window and she heard rough, joyful laughter bubbling out of the speakers.

It was that precise moment when Shizuru realised she was helplessly in love with Duran.

She saved the sound recording to a folder on her desktop.

About a year into their friendship he surprised her again. He was telling her about a stunt he pulled on his bike, he had screwed up a jump, but still managed to land properly despite (accidentally) almost doing a flip. She had mock complained about not being able to see it. He responded something like

"Fine, if it will stop your complaining"

A few minutes later a "download video" icon appeared in the msn window. She opened it. The soundless video began with a scene of a forest clearing, with many people, who appeared to be from all over the spectrum of teenagehood, running around in ninja outfits. The camera turned slightly to the right and focused on a small group of people nearby, one of them was standing next to a motorcycle. It zoomed in on this one, who turned to face the camera. It was Duran. He looked slighter then she had expected, but it was him, she could tell by the little bit of his face that wasn't covered in dark cloth, by the eyes and the little wisps of blue hair that escaped his hood. He turned away from the camera, removed the cloth from around his face, donned a helmet and mounted the bike.

He drove off into the forest and all the little ninja people fled to the edges of the clearing. There was a high ridge near one side of the clearing, the camera focused on this while everyone else kept well away. Suddenly Duran burst out of the forest. The bike hit the ridge and flew into the air. It wobbled as it did so and began to flip. Duran jerked the machine and it righted itself, just in time to hit the ground with both wheels, bounce once and come to a stop.

The video ended abruptly there. Shizuru hadn't thought that anything could improve the warm fuzzy feeling in her chest that remained for days after she spoke to Duran, but seeing that video sure did. He began sending her videos of stunts he'd done, whenever she bugged him about it. One day it clicked that he only mentioned some things just so she would ask to see them. Eventually he dropped even this pretence, sending her videos without describing the events at all. Each time he waited eagerly afterwards for her always glowing reply. He was very much like a puppy in that way.

Once she joked about feeling jealous of the girls she saw him with in his videos. Although she didn't see anyone's faces, as they always wore ninja-type masks, some of the people were obviously female. He responded, embarrassed, in the negative. As she had hoped, because it hadn't really been a joke at all.

One of the common punishments at his boarding school was removal of internet privileges. He seemed to get into trouble a lot, and would sometimes be missing for weeks. Each time got harder. His sincere, excited happiness when they made contact again was almost enough to make up for it. But not quite. One of their few arguments came about when she tried to convince him to just be good, and try to avoid having his internet privileges taken away. The absences were becoming too hard for her.

But of course she never told him that. She would never breathe a word about her feelings. Because she was afraid. Because what, to an outsider, appeared to be reciprocation of those feelings; his joy when they were reunited, his eagerness for her approval after each video, his subtle desire for affectionate words. To her, having known him for years, those things were just as likely, more likely, to be the response of a child who received little to no affection as he grew up, estranged from his family, with few close friends. Anything that could be an expression of liking or love for her was eclipsed by his loneliness, and the desire to quench it. As to how he felt about her specifically, she had no idea. And so, her lips were sealed.

Several weeks ago Itsuki sent her an email, saying 'goodbye'. He had to break contact with her, but couldn't, wouldn't, say why. He said only that they were best friends, that she meant a lot to him, and that they would never be able to speak to each other ever again. She felt ill, wretchedly so, in between bouts of shock and disbelief. She quickly began writing him an email, a very long, meticulously thought out email, asking why he thought he had to do this, and explaining why it was a silly idea. When it elicited no reply she sent another one. And another. And another. They became increasingly hysterical. She grew furious at his lack of response and the emails quickly turned into nasty letters brimming with intense, restrained anger. Anger degenerated into helpless begging. Nothing worked. Begging stopped, to be replaced with mournful, exhausted acceptance. She felt dead. A few days after she sent her second last email to him, she pulled herself together enough to compose her last. It was a proper goodbye, to match his, and she sent it off and from then on tried not to think about him anymore. It didn't work, but she did try.

That had been a week ago. And now here it was, the thing she had so desperately longed for all these weeks, a reply. She opened it with trembling fingers. There was an attachment, and the body of the email said only this:

I'm sorry. I love you.

Don't show this to anyoe youdon't recognise.

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Author's Note: Holy crap that took a long time to write! I hope the following chapters aren't this long.....

Now, unless you're like me and skip everything in a fic that doesn't have Natsuki in it, or at least people talking about Natsuki, you may have noticed a few strange things. Russia, Korea and Japan are apparently at war. Korea is a country. Everyone in Japan is speaking English. Msn does not quite work the same way as it does here. These are because this is an AU, set in a world very similar to ours but with a few major differences. Just like the world in the His Dark Materials trilogy, accept not related in any way.