Summary: it's how you play the cards you're dealt.
Rating: K+
loser
Love is a losing game, a game Haru Miura knew the rules too all too well. She was to go around the board, in a stupifying dizzying daydream, tangled in a web she weaved herself, chasing after the beautiful boy who she never had a chance of catching. If she paced herself correctly, she could find herself catching him, holding him for a second, though he'd slip out of her grasps far easier than he'd came. It happened so often that she found herself not to hurt after he left without saying goodbye, she found herself simply cleaning up the mess they made and carrying on, without a word of complaint. Love was a losing hand, but she'd play until she was out.
That being said, she did not rest her head on his chest during the night her spent in her bed, despite every impulse telling her to do so. She did not let him drape his arm around her, despite wanting to feel his warmth on her. She did not face him, making his face the last memory of the day. No, this was a game she could never win, so she'd rather minimize her losses than play and lose everything. Instead, she turned over on her side and faced the window, letting the curtains be her last thought before falling into the emptiness of a loveless, dreamless sleep.
A loss of warmth woke her up the next day, and a slave to her desires, she found that she could never truly resist her impulses. Her body would never let her sleep with someone, sleep with him, without entangling him in her sticky webs, just for a moment. But the rules of the game state that she must wake up alone, and she did, for the body she knew—that beautiful boy who she could never have—left her, if only to go to the bathroom. Haru's big brown eyes looked towards the clock, seeing it to be fifteen minutes until four, the time he'd be walking out on her, anyway. A moment later, she heard the shower running, a sign that he was on his way out. It was so commonplace for him to sleepover and leave at dawn that he had a permanent drawer in her dresser, his toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom.
Well, if she were to lose the game, she would be a good sport, she thought, slinging her legs across the bed and rising. Grabbing her robe, she walked out of her room and towards the kitchen, bouncing to a song she only heard in her mind. It seemed to be a happy beat, for she had a pot of coffee on the stove too quickly for someone as depressed as she should have been. Maybe this was part of the game, she reasoned, grabbing two mugs and propping herself up on the counter. She knew that she was doomed to repeat the process of losing him, and whoever would come after, but she refused to be a sore loser. Maybe she was a terrible winner in another life and this was karma, so if she played well, the board would be even for next time around.
She spotted him coming down the hall, dressed and clean and ready to walk away from her. She stopped for a second, hesistating, then looked at the clock, seeing it was five minutes after the hour. When he reached the kitchen, he seemed surprised to find her awake and active, staring at him with big brown eyes and dressed in a yellow bathrobe. He snapped out of it a moment later, walking towards the door before she yelped, "Wait," in a timid, afraid voice. "S-Since you're leaving, you may as well have something, Hibari." A pregnant pause entered the room as she closed her tiny mouth, her brown eyes downcast and his slanted grey ones searching the room for any inclination as to where this behavior could have spawned from. Haru allowed a small laugh to break the silence, sliding off the counter and taking the pot off of the burner. "I don't know why I got so attatched to you," she said, pouring herself a mug, "when you don't do anything but come in and leave."
"I never said I would stay," Hibari spoke immediately, leaning on the wall. He seemed amused by the girl, sipping her coffee and speaking her mind without restraint. When she was like this was when he noticed her, unrestrained and uncensored, though she often switched to a quieter, more mouse-like creature.
"I know, all I could ever be to you is something comfortable, something we could both get accustomed to," she sighed, pouring the other mug. She handed it to him and sat back on the counter, knocking on the cupboard beside her, "Just in case you needed something sweet." She sipped hers, black and strong, and threw him a soft smile. He looked at her and smirked, walking over to the counter and throwing the cupboard open, taking the sugar jar out and pouring a hefty amount in. "I didn't take you for a sugar guy."
"Then why offer?"
"Because I was raised with manners." She watched him stir the drink until the white crystals all but disappeared, and then took a long drink. "I don't understand why I stress a man when there's much bigger things at hand," she admitted, looking at him with a hint of disdain. "If I didn't worry about you," she started, "I'd be working in Italy, under Verde. Doing some super science shit instead of being cramped in a basement, working on these damn rings for Tsunya." She took another sip and watched him, something she was always good at.
"Don't stress me," he said, "Go ahead and go to Italy."
"But then we couldn't have nice mornings like this."
"What is this?" he asked, his voice hazy. He didn't stop drinking, but he looked at her with those steely grey eyes, and she remembered why she stressed him—why she plays game of cat and mouse where she is both the cat and the mouse. Uncertainly, she took another sip and he looked away, backing away from the counter.
"This is my postponing of our inevitible conclusion," she said, looking directly at him. "I'm bad at love, and I'm just cheating myself again by playing this round with you."
"What are you saying?" he said, setting his mug down. He placed is arms on either side of her, trapping her on the counter and in his prescense without any resistance. Haru only stared at him blankly, knowing exactly where she was on the board. She was almost at the end, but some delay would cause her to double back and go around, all over again. It was a circle, a menacing cycle that ended in nothing but her heartbreak, and even though she tried to keep herself from feeling it this time.
"I'm saying that when you walk out that door, I'm going to go back to my room and lay on your side of the bed and cry. I'm saying that everytime you walk out that door, I lay on your side and cry. But I'm also saying that my tears dry on their own, I'd just prefer not to let them live in the first place." She threw the game, once again, preferring to quit before she was beaten. She couldn't remove her player from the board but she could show her opponent all of her cards and her strategy, and hopefully he would end it before it got painful. "It's your move," she said, sipping the last of her coffee and discarding it in the sink. "Honestly, I don't understand why you haven't walked away, yet."
"Do you want me to?" he asked, his voice confused but strong, not giving way to any other emotion other than confusion.
"Of course not," she started, "but I know you will. Everyone walks away, eventually."
"I'm not everyone, and this isn't eventually."
"Wha—"
"I have no idea what kind of game you're playing, but I don't want to win just yet."