hopeless romantic
description: She is a hopeless romantic. She has been one her whole life. 2786. AU. Haru-centric.
When she is seven, the idea of happily ever afters and meeting "the one" tickles her pink. When she is seven, she is absorbed in reading. She gobbles up the books (especially the fairy tales,) as her mother would say with a proud tone.
Especially the fairy tales.
The princes on their fancy and well-groomed white horses never appeal to her. The bedraggled and chivalrous knights do.
She is an odd seven year old, she thinks. Girls her age aren't supposed to be thinking about romance.
Girls her age are supposed to be thinking about romance.
She's not quite sure. The romance she thinks of is still unadulterated and young and naive. She doesn't know about abusive relationships or purely sexual relationships. She doesn't know anything of the sort. She doesn't know angst yet.
She is only seven years old. She clings onto the idea of love and warm feelings. She falls in love with the idea of falling in love.
But it doesn't necessarily mean that all her actions and waking moments (or sleeping moments for that matter) are dedicated to love. She occasionally unleashes her inner baking potential when there are yams in the house.
When her parents are fast asleep and her younger sister is doing... something, she plucks out a single yam and peels it slowly. She tries to peel it the way her mother and father peel apples. It doesn't work. Everything moves in a blur and she eventually finds herself ramming the bottom of plastic cups into the yellow flesh, pretending that she's making shapes for cookies.
She pretends that the salt and pepper she's adding onto her "cookies" are really sprinkles and chocolate chip cookies. She tucks in and marvels at her creation. A few minutes later, she is still chewing. But there is less fervor and a crumpled look is starting to form.
It doesn't taste very good, but she forces herself to finish the whole thing.
Imagination is a powerful thing for a seven-year old girl. It can transform yams into cookies, salt into sprinkles and pepper into chocolate chips.
What a powerful thing.
But it is not enough to stop the disappointment welling up in her little heart. She wants to make real cookies. But part of her feels that asking her parents will result in a burden. She doesn't want to do that to them.
Usually, she feels guilty when she asks her parents for things.
A seven year old child's heart is not as light as people think it to be.
When she is seven, she tries to show that she is smart. She lugs heavy textbooks with her to school and reads up formulas on pi and what-not. She pretends to look high and mighty when she sits amongst the other kids but her seven year old mind is aching with confusion and she really doesn't get anything at all.
She brags that the information she's reading is college material. A part of her is ashamed for acting like such a show-off. She shrivels up in shame. But a seven year old is proud and she decides to carry out the act with a high head and a sinking heart.
It is at the age of seven when she realizes she is a show-off and a braggart.
Her dislike for math in her later years can be traced back to the age of seven.
When she is seven, it is her father, not her mother who ties up her hair for her. He ties her sister's hair too. Their hair is always touched by water-rinsed hands and is always combed back with a black brush. At the end of the ritual, her hair is put into an ordinary ponytail. She admires her father.
When she is seven, she is closer to her father than she is to her mother. When he is sick with fever one day, her little seven year old heart freezes up and she desperately tries to do everything she can. She grabs tissues and water bottles and ice and she doesn't know what to do because Father has never been sick. Her father has always been the one caring for her. It's the other way around but the thing that frustrates her most is that she can't even help the person who has always helped her without complaint.
When she is seven, her father flips her over and she smiles radiantly for him. When she comes home from school, he is on his huge bed and looks at her with a warm look. She runs to his arms without a second thought and buries herself in his chest. He calls her his little blanket. She is pleased with the affectionate name. Blankets are supposed to warm up people when they're cold.
It's no exaggeration if one were to say that seven year old Miura Haru wouldn't mind being called her father's little blanket forever.
Seven year old Miura Haru is in love with the idea of falling in love but is not in love. Not yet. In order to understand Haru and the boy she cares for in the present, one has to look back to where it all started at the wee age of seven.
author's note: You could say that this is a warm-up for me. I'm trying to get the hang of writing again (which I haven't done for a long time because of school.) This is also a sort of... Therapeutic exercise for me. A reflection. This work will have my life integrated with it. Not all of it. But I can tell you this: Seven year old Miura Haru is very much seven year old me.
How many of you are like seven year old Haru?
I will be updating this weekly. My estimate for this would be... Maybe ten or more chapters? It depends on how much you, the readers and I, the writer like it. I do apologize for the roughly written writing... It's been a long time.