The Joys of Privacy
By that little guy called spongecake 2
Disclaimer - I'm still bitter about Other M, Team Ninja; you won't tempt me back with a new DOA.
People often talk about the scariest thing of the world. Some say it's to die. Some say it is to lose someone. Others, including myself, would say it is to fall in love. Love is a detective, manipulative, cold; a cruel puppeteer.
You fall into love once; everybody does. In some ways, its like the flu; it makes you giddy, and creates a helplessness within you. You can't do without that other.
"What is that dross you're reading, Xiaoyu?" Came Asuka's voice as she interrupted Xiaoyu's murmurings. The black-haired girl immediately whipped her head around.
"It's not dross!" She moaned. "It's Miharu's diary! It's beautiful! So sad…" She looked back to the pages, only to have Asuka approach her, a scowl on her face.
"Xiao, I thought you better than that." She told her. Xiaoyu shook her head.
"It's not like that, Asuka." She explained. "Miharu's been down recently… in fact, it seems whenever she comes to the tournament, she gets down…"
"And rooting through her private diary will help?" This remark came with a smirk.
"She won't tell me." Xiaoyu said. "That's too much like Mi to be funny. She just smiles again, and turns away, saying she's fine… if she won't tell me, then I'll just find out myself."
"So, she's upset, so you've decided to read all the secrets she wrote down in the knowledge that no one would find out?" Asuka raised her hands and slowly applauded. Xiaoyu pouted as Asuka's sarcastic drawl hit her. "Congratulations, you'd do Caesar himself proud." She extended her right hand. "Now give me the book so I can take it back."
"Have a heart, Asuka!" Xiaoyu suddenly shouted. "I can't help her if I don't know what to do." Asuka scowled, her left fist clenched and her right arm shook, still expecting the book.
"If she wanted your help, she'd ask." She told Xiaoyu. "And I don't trust you enough to let you take it back yourself without telling everyone in Tokyo what she ate for breakfast this morning!" Xiaoyu twisted the book in her hands and backed slowly away.
Also like the flu, it's never, EVER, real first time around. Then somebody catches it for real, and leaves the other without a crutch to stand on. And you drop hopelessly.
A person who has loved and was loved but no longer. They are always bitter, regardless of whether or not the feeling was mutual or the break-up was gentle, and who could blame them?
Who could blame me?
"I need to help her!" She shouted. "Miharu's dying inside and I need to help her!" Asuka began to bare her gritted teeth.
"Xiao…" She hissed, but Xiaoyu reopened the book.
"There's a list!" She shouted in amazement. "A list!" Then Asuka grabbed at the book, a small light red binding of paper that was yanked away from Xiaoyu's body, but her hands held on.
"And you aren't going to read it! It's none of your business!"
"Says you, picking fights in Osaka when uncalled for!" Xiaoyu screeched, pushing Asuka away and regaining a grip on the book. The Japanese girl's face went red, an opposite of Xiaoyu's porcelain features. Xiaoyu looked nervous and looked to the open window of the hotel room. Asuka saw this look and laughed.
"You are kidding!" She barked with a grin. Then she watched Xiaoyu's body shoot out of the window, and her jaw dropped. "Oh god, you aren't."
Then you see someone. I saw someone. It was 'the one', a fictional construct of media and more successful beings; the belief that of all the millions and billions in the world, only one is right for you. Just one, and that's your lot! And yet… they were right! They are the one! Undisputable, unanimous, definite.
And then what? You could walk on by, of course, right? The one isn't real, remember? You simply walk on by forever. You'll be alone, but numb. No pain… no suffering… no way.
She bit her lip, rushing to the window. She looked to the street below. Xiaoyu may have been a gymnast, but she can't have possibly landed a drop of almost five storeys without…
"The bitch!" Asuka shouted in horror. Xiaoyu was rushing across the road at lightning speed! How, she thought, is that even possible? She looked down again. Nothing to land on. Asuka's eyes narrowed as she watched Xiaoyu open the book, having slowed to a casual walk, then to a halt. No time to lose! Asuka rubbed her forehead. She had made plenty of jumps like this, but only on bike; never on foot.
There's a first time for everything. Asuka thought, scowling, placing on foot onto the windowpane. There! A passing lorry! It came close, though maybe not close enough. Asuka jumped anyway. The wind less rushed through her hair and more smacked into her face, pushing her back as her fingertips hit the metal box, and then her feet, and like a cat on all fours Asuka landed, before moving quickly. People stopped to stare in amazement as Asuka looked for the next platform. An immobile car! Perfect. Another jump, a whump and a shudder, and Asuka rolled off the red box painfully, landing onto the black tarmac like a stone, but she got up immediately, with Xiaoyu in her sights. The Chinese girl was non-the-wiser to Asuka's pursuit, and was completely enraptured in the contents of the diary. Asuka's fist clenched, running over. Xiaoyu didn't see or hear her, and the first she knew of Asuka's arrival was a sudden elbow to the back of her head. She dropped forward, her chest rattling as it collided with the pavement. She stared at the book fly. Asuka watched it plummet, and then it landed, a white blemish in the middle of a grey blank slate that was the streets. Asuka's hand reached out, but it paused slightly. Because she hesitated. Because she saw it.
You can't. You just… can't. Try as you might, you can't resist them. I couldn't.
What then? Retract? Makes sense; the pain was scary. It could be back tenfold now you're vulnerable. So you distrust them. The one? A myth! The beautiful face? Fiction! The warmth, the sweet lips, the kisses, the sex, the long walks on sunny shores, the tedious daily life made better by their mere presence, all a goddamn lie! They are convinced that love is again playing another trick on them, and they neglect the fire of love…only to find that it was real. It was REAL! And it's gone. You took too long to realise and stoke that flame for fear of getting burnt, and it died on you.
It died on me.
She couldn't help it. To say it was a revelation to her was an understatement. That damn list. It wasn't the size of the list that shocked her, or any particular name, but it was the first few that amazed her. They were girl's names. Her eyes widened, and her gaze began to quickly scan the page…
No, Asuka, dammit! She told herself, shaking her head. You're the one berating Xiaoyu for looking! Asuka looked back to Xiaoyu, who was blearily getting up, dizzied by the strike. She resisted the temptation to read anymore than the two names she saw, closing the book and running away desperately. So she swung that way. That wasn't important. The important thing was the diary itself. The contents of it could be absolutely damn anything for all she cared.
Or, you could be trusting. You could be romantic. You could be stupid. You could decide you're fed up of the constant lies; the trickery of love first time, the truth of the second. Third time's a charm. You put your heart; your fragile, beating, now completely embittered heart, into their palms… and watch it get squashed all over a-fucking-gain.
Again and again it's happened to me.
Xiaoyu staggered this way and that for a brief period. That hit! It was immense! As if she wasn't shaken to the core enough already! Miharu hadn't told her… that. She didn't even drop a hint! Nothing! She had to talk to her about this right away.
"The diary!" She shouted. She looked up to her a flash of brown hair rush into the crowd and disappear. Her mind changed immediately. Mi would be confronted, but not before getting back that diary. With steel in her eyes and her nerves pumping with adrenaline, she regained her senses and charged after Asuka. Her heart pounded, desperate from keeping Asuka from finding out. Her hands pushed ahead of her, shoving person after person away with speed even she could not control, but she saw Asuka's head bop in the crowd ahead of her, and get closer. Her feet carried her as her hands suddenly gripped the red book, causing Asuka to turn. She slowed to see where Xiaoyu was, and then she was already past her. The street cleared ahead of them as the public saw this commotion and parted in the wake of the chase as Xiaoyu drove forward with Asuka hot on her heels.
"Xiaoyu, get back here!" Came a snarling bark. Xiaoyu's feet went before her brain realised where they were, and suddenly she found herself running through the air. The bench she had effortlessly bounded over seemed to cause Asuka some trouble, and Xiaoyu smirked, before twisting her head back, only just seeing the telegraph pole as she slammed into it, the wood shaking and rattling with the force as Xiaoyu stumbled back. Back where she couldn't see, back into the grip of two strong hands, back towards the smirking but still angry Asuka, who immediately dropped her to clasp the diary in hand.
Some people manage one and give up; some of the braver, stupider ones, go for two; the unlucky ones get it thrice. Me? Four times. Love has an odd, cruel sense of humour.
You'd think I'd learn after that, don't you? You'd think I'd frigging learn! But no, every damn time it happens! My heart and brain seem to be conspiring against each other; I know it's stupid! I know it's crazy! I know it's naïve, but my heart simply won't let me give up!
I wish I could give it up.
"You're a little devil to catch, you know." She remarked, before looking upwards, her eyes filled with iron determination. Xiaoyu gulped.
"… but you can't take it back to her yourself!" She told her, but Asuka shook her head.
"Relax, Xiao, I know." She explained. "A little surprising, but you can't ever guess, can you? Unlike you, though, I resisted the temptation to read that list you squealed about, which I'll be more than happy to tell her!"
"But, Asuka, she's in love again. It'd kill her to know that…"
"Well, you'd think she'd know not to put her heart back through the wringer, but that's her problem." She began to walk away, leaving Xiaoyu behind her. "A problem I don't think either of us have any place to intervene in. If she didn't want to tell us she was a lesbian, or that she was in love, or that she's got the worst streak of luck with relationships, we shouldn't know anyway…"
"No, Asuka, you don't understand! It's…"
"Xiao, I've said everything I need to say!" She then disappeared into the crowd, leaving Xiaoyu in the dust of the city hustle-bustle, her eyes cracking slightly, her heart wrenching in fear, her stomach coiling in pity.
When Asuka finds out it's HER, Xiaoyu thought, I don't want to be there.
Author's Note - Oh god, that fucking hurt.
Call it an experiment. Call it a testing ground. Call it what you will. Just please kill me.
Ok, allow me to back up. Knife Shine is running very slow, What It Was is nothing to the speed it should be at, and considering the mountain of work piling up for me, I'm going to be in a crunch period for a few months. I'm a slow enough updater and a slow enough reader as it is, so expect things to be a little quiet from me for a while. I'm still writing, as well, but now it's focused on non-internet stuff; two novels and a series of short stories with another author. It's rattling away, but the stuff on this will be no priority of mine. I hope to get a thing out every month, but that's no realistic expectation.
So I thought 'Hey, how about a one-shot? You haven't done one in (literally) years, and it'll let people know you're still on the face of Planet Earth!'
Then I started writing. First sign of trouble.
This is mostly just messing around. Knife Shine's going to end up having a basket of brooding and I'm also trying out chase scenes as opposed to fight scenes, and there's also experimentation in another, slightly more dangerous genre of fanfiction that I can safely say that, while I'm sure the good outweighs the bad, currently seems to has a lot to answer for, so call this stretching muscles for the big stuff.
Just... bear that in mind when you review this. This isn't something I gave much thought to and something I'm not tremendously proud of, and I only really put it up because you lovely people might like it. Tell me if you don't, and I'll stop.