Not a big deal in the end
Naoko had been his third girlfriend, the first that never said a word against tennis while they were dating. Their relationship started the same way as the ones before: she asked him out, and he said yes. She was cute, and she blushed up to her ears while asking him, and Marui found no reason to say no. Dating wasn't that big deal; you go to movies or to amusement parks, you hung out at McDonald's or a coffee shop for a break, you share a kiss or two. Really, not a big deal.
Kotone had been the first, and she dumped him after three weeks saying he wasn't supposed to stay late for practice every day; instead, he was supposed to meet her every day, at least according to her point of view. He was in his second year of Junior High at the time, not yet a tennis club regular, but with the firm intention to became one. When she gave him an ultimatum, he didn't need to think about it for a single second. Hana asked him out during the opening ceremony of his third year. She called him under the cherry blossoms, gave him a letter and walked away; the letter was written in bright pink ink, and it was far too cheesy for his taste, but Marui didn't really mind. They'd been dating for a month and half, and then she cried and yelled she didn't really mattered to him, that he went out with her just to kill time; it wasn't true, but it wasn't false either. She was cute, and all, but he didn't feel his heart breaking as she walked away.
He met Naoko after national finals. She came to him one day after school, with a box full of handmade cookies and the total incapacity of looking him in the eyes while talking. Marui thought it was cute, and accepted to meet her for a coffee, or a piece of cake, or something, I mean, you don't have to say yes, and no no no, it's not a date, it's just - and Marui needed to stop her babbling saying it was okay if it was a date, and she blushed so hard he thought she was about to burn, but her smile was even brighter and he didn't mind to say yes.
Naoko was like a coffee shop during a cold winter evening. Her hands were always warm, and she smelled like spices and cookie dough. She was in the home economics club, not by her choice. She enjoyed ice skating in grade school; there was an Ice Palace right behind her house - she could see it from her bedroom's window - and she went there twice a week since she was seven. There was no ice skating club at Rikkai, nor any skating club in general, so she would have wanted to skip club activities and kept practicing at the Ice Palace after school, but her mother forced her to quit, sold her skates at a thrift shop near the harbor and forced her to sign up into home economics. As Naoko learned to sew, on the lines traced by the needle on the fabric she only saw the trails left by the skates on the ice.
For their third date, they went to the Ice Palace. Not the one in which she practiced for years, but a bigger one in Tōkyō, with huge banners of the local team hanging by the bleachers. She needed to teach Marui even how to stand, but she laughed her heart off when he tripped and fell right on her, and the more he apologized the more she laughed and God, she was so, so beautiful his heart ached more than his bruised hand.
She was even more beautiful when she finally left him on a bench and went skating by herself; she flied on the ice like a raindrop down the window, and people stopped their skating to watch her as well, her smile more bright that the ice under the sunlight.
She wanted to go to a tennis match for their fourth date. Marui didn't really mind - watching tennis wasn't really his piece of cake - but she lend him the tickets with so much expectations in her eyes, so yes, it was amazing, he couldn't wait for that.
Marui never watched tennis on tv, unless it was Federer, but Federer didn't attend the Japan Open. Marui didn't even know the players they ended up watching. They were two baseliners, and they just played at who-could-hit-harder for two hours straight. Marui didn't want Naoko to see him yawning, but hell, it had been hard to not doing so. Again, she was so happy, and he just didn't want to hurt her; he avoided that like he avoided to step on a newborn flower on the grass.
God, you really like the chick, Niou told him. Yes, Marui replied. But then he asked him, are you in love, and Marui didn't know. Can you fall in love with a newborn flower you see between the grass?
...
Marui wasn't even sure about how they broke up in the end, but he started to see the shattered pieces before everything blew up, before he truly understood what a heartbreak was for the first time - and, he just didn't care, didn't he?
One day Naoko's smile failed to reach her eyes, and her hand slipped away from his to hide in her sleeve. They were walking home from school, planning to go to the library to study. Finals and admissions test were approaching, and they were all kinda freaking out. They studied with Niou a couple of times, but the guy was as smart as uncooperative into giving any sort of help or advice, so they just let him be.
The library was full of students on that time of the year, but they always managed to find two seats, and they could always stop by the coffee shop across the street for a break - or two; Naoko was more responsible than Marui could've ever been, but she always gave up on the endless post-it with "break", "plis", "im dying" written on he kept sticking on her notes.
They had hot chocolate and marshmallows, and they questioned each other on maths and japanese literature and biology. Their strong subjects were the same, and they were both terrible at maths, but she was a little less terrible than him, and somehow they managed to overcome those exercises from hell in the end.
Naoko didn't talk on their way to the library that day; it was one of those days that should just be erased from the world because they were not only unnecessarily cold, but they featured that kind of wind that got through jackets and sweaters and trousers like thousand ice needles, no matter how covered you were. Marui had forgotten his gloves home, and Naoko never wore them in the first place. Her hand was still warm despite the cold, and she kept holding Marui's even if his was like a big, red block of ice. Marui would've wanted to just dig it in his pocket or hide it under the coat's sleeve, but Naoko loved holding hands, so it was okay.
She held his hand a little tighter, then said, there's something I need to ask you.
I'm listening, he replied. Maybe they could stop by the coffee shop before heading to the library, he suggested. She just held his hand even tighter, and hell, that would've been an answer, if he had been able to hear that over her silence. But Marui was deaf as you are after watching fireworks too much, too much close, and well, if she didn't want to tell him in the end, that wasn't a big deal, wasn't it. She smiled and no, she said, it's nothing. She let go his hand halfway through the stairs, and didn't turn to see if he was following her.
Marui put his hand in his pocket, but it didn't get any warmer.
...
When he was in third grade, his teacher had the weird habit to make them do lists of mistakes. After they got a test, they had to correct it all together in class, and then to make a list of all the errors they'd done. To be sure to remember them next time, the teacher told them. He didn't remember her name, nor her face, only that long lists of errors he had been forced to write one day after the other - despite what she said, they never get any shorter, and well, he always failed to recognize all of them - even his list of errors needed to be checked, and the teacher shook her head and said, you'll do better next time, but it was never true. He hated that, and hell, he had forget it for so long, but when Naoko looked at him and asked him, are you sure you didn't make any mistakes, and she was crying, when he really didn't know what to tell her, what mistakes he had done, he had no idea, he realized that stupid exercise didn't work at all. He didn't get any better at avoiding mistakes than at recognizing them.
Kotone dumped him because the time they passed together was never enough, Hana ran away because she felt she didn't matter enough. Naoko was walking away and she was asking him why, and he just didn't, didn't know, because he did everything right this time, didn't he? They went to the cinema and watched romantic comedies and he even agreed to buy salty pop-corn instead of the sweet ones. They went ice-skating at least once a month - she did, at least, and Marui went with her and sat on the bleachers and just watched and God, she was never tired to watch her fly on the ice. They played tennis together, and she was so clunky they always end up on the ground, laughing too hard even to stand up. They went on dates and they held hands and they kissed, he kissed her hands and her neck, and she loved when he kissed her neck, and always smiled like only she was able to do, so brightly he couldn't help but smile her back, and kissed her again because she was too beautiful not to be kissed, and still...
She was smiling now, but nothing was bright anymore in that smile, wet from tears, and, I love you, she said, but you don't love me back and and this hurts more than not seeing you at all.
Are you in love, Niou had asked, and he hadn't known, and he still didn't know - because flowers are beautiful and you want to protect them and save them from any hurt, but that really meant that you love them?
He didn't stop her when she walked away. Like he didn't ask her anything when she needed to talk, like he never said I love you first, and God, he knew how to make her smile, but I didn't have a clue of what to do when she wasn't smiling anymore and he couldn't listen to her when she didn't talk at all. He just searched for her eyes, she was avoiding his gaze, like she did before, but he never, never asked her why, and he asked now - and then he smiled for one last time and it's still so beautiful it hurts. You need to ask, she said, that's why.
...
Marui walked home alone, with his cold hands and his undone maths exercises in the bag, with his face hidden in the scarf and wondering if the tears could really froze on the cheeks, like waterfalls on the mountaintops, white traces of ice and salt marking his face as melted make-up. He looked at the dark grey sky which promised snow.
Dating is really not a big deal in the end. You have fun, and get hands to hold and kisses to give. You don't need to fall in love, you don't need to have your heart broken - that would be lame, wouldn't it. Not a big deal, yeah, until you truly break someone's heart, and you stepped on that flower, and you know what, maybe he's kinda a big deal, because, hell, breaking someone's heart could hurt as well as breaking your own.
I'm sorry if this thing doesn't make sense. I owe this to a day passed working on my thesis, a can of Red Bull and Say something (I'm giving up on you) played in loop (plus some old Marui headcanons of mine from some time ago). I literally started writing it completely clueless, I didn't know what I was doing until I was halfway through the end, and I barely edited it, so maybe it's a little blurry - but well, it fits the kind of thing it's meant to be, I guess. I hope you enjoyed it anyways. Lots of kisses.
Fanny.