"A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge."
— Thomas Carlyle
Song; The Tragedy Of Our Hearts ("Lady Gaga")
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i. it has no appeal.
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He didn't fall head over heels for her the first time they met. In fact, the first time he met her, he distinctly remembered getting hit on the side of the head while being touched at his private area by someone totally unfamiliar to him and nearly passing out right on the spot.
It was kind of hard to fall for a girl that almost knocks you unconscious by accident. Their relationship was based upon her constantly apologizing and his frustrated frowns and disapproving hazel eyes.
That was it, nothing more.
What more could you expect from that sort of relationship.
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ii. don't need a relationship; i'll never soften my grip.
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He had seen the gazes. He was not an idiot, especially when it came to girls. In fact, he was probably the least clueless when it came to girls out of the three best friends.
He just chose to ignore it because he rather not led her on, rather not broke her heart. Because he knew what heartbreak felt like, what it tasted like and he rather sheltered her from it than pushing her to experience it.
He didn't know why he felt the need to protect her from it, even if he may very well was the source of it in the long run. It was just another one of those ironies that made up life he supposed.
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iii. i know exactly what i want and who i want to be.
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He was a hopeless romantic. He believed in love at first sight and soul mates and kismet connections and destined lovers, regardless of the tragedies being involved in the mix or not. He absorbed the anguishes and joys of what love was meant to be, of each definition of love thoroughly and took them wherever he went, just in case.
But just because he was a hopeless romantic didn't mean he was also a hopeless dreamer. His imagination only stretched as far as love could go.
She was a hopeless dreamer. She believed in happy endings, prince charming, and fairy tales that could never be. She kept herself enchanted with oceans of sparkling sea-green dreams. She believed in the impossible and the extraordinary and love stories were only the beginning. There was so much more in the world around her, propelling her to be a visionary.
He was old enough to know hopeless romantics and hopeless dreamers were doomed to fail, no matter how hard they might tried working at it, no matter how right they might seemed on the surface.
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iv. you're beautiful, it's true.
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The first time she took his breath away was on a mid-July afternoon. He'd been feeling restless and had somehow found himself walking aimlessly in the park, when he found himself on the top of the hill near the park.
She had been standing on top of the bench, facing the sun that fragmented rays of light upon her and highlighted the contours of her figure. Her arms had been wide open as if to welcome and soak in the warmth of radiating heat coming from the sunlight and she spun around slowly in place and her mouth open slightly, indicating quiet words being spoken.
She'd laid her dreams out across the ground for the world to see and admire and they glittered like scattered stardust, and for a second he had almost felt jarred in place by momentary fear.
The sun shined so bright, almost as if to promise to evaporate her scattered dreams and never give them back if she kept them out to be scrutinized by the world around her for too long.
She gave away her trust so easily, shared the things most important to her so freely, her faith unwavering.
And as she stopped in place, keeping her chin up to face the sun, with the wind blowing at her light summer dress and exposing the curves of her lithe and slender figure, wisps of auburn hair carelessly encompassing her face, he thought she looked like an angel, honey-kissed and born out of blue moons that arise from nocturnal ocean waves.
"What are you thinking about?"
The grass beneath them was brittle and moist all at the same. It brushed back and forth with the push of the wind, and in the light of the moon, his eyes shone of blue charcoaled glitter and it reminded her of summertime fireflies.
She felt like she was fluttering away into night time tales, of empty conversations filled with unspoken words.
"Little things. Frivolous things."
Constellations of stars scattered across the milky, dark-blue sky, untouchable. Always so untouchable and far away.
She had liked to catch one, one of these days.
"Like?"
Time passed by slowly.
"First loves."
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v. so little to say but so much time, despite my empty mouth the words are in my mind.
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"Did you ever love anyone?" He turned around, curiously staring at her.
"That's kind of personal, isn't it?" He replied in a low voice and she shrugged her shoulders, "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
She laid back into the grass and sighed and she thought from up here, it was almost like she could catch the stars laid across the dark blue sky. If she could, she would make one of those stars twinkling down towards them, her sanctuary, her escape. She told him so and all she got in response was more of his intent gaze upon her.
Moments passed by and they sat in silence, listening to the crickets chirping, and everything seemed at so much ease, like the world wasn't spinning nearly as fast it should.
"If I could, I'd catch a star." He finally confessed, lying down next to her, with one arm behind his head, and staring up at the sky.
She laughed, a quiet song in her voice, funny because she couldn't sing for her life. "Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day..." She said breathlessly, making sure to not going anywhere near adding melody to the song.
"There was one girl." He finally said, his voice cracking at the end. "She had the prettiest black hair and honey eyes. She's the closest I ever got to—" He couldn't say it. He had no idea why, but it kept getting stuck in his throat.
She turned onto her side, her brown eyes signalling she was listening and something ignited in him. He had never talked to anyone about this, except maybe his best friends.
"Sometimes I fall so easily, but I never seem to fall in love in time," he took a deep breath, shuddering, "Maybe I over think it, maybe it's supposed to just come to me, but it never does when it should, and then I lose them, suddenly I'm a heartbreaker—" He stopped short, composing himself, and looking away. He had already said too much.
"Casanova." She concluded thoughtfully.
"I'm not a—" He started defensively, feeling betrayed after revealing so much to her, and having her—
"Kidding," She murmured reassuringly, soothingly, and he didn't know why little things always got to him so easily. "You're just a terrible romantic," she finished off.
"Love should be perfect. Is that too much to ask for?" He mumbled, feeling restless under her discerning gaze.
When did everything get so serious with Yoshioka?
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vi. i wish you couldn't figure me out, but you always wanna know what i was about.
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The boy broke her heart. Truth be told, Touma knew enough of the guy from some classes they had together to acknowledge he was a nice guy and probably never meant to hurt her; that it was probably just a by-product of the inevitable. Breaking up was just another part of the cycle of first loves, first relationships, and first break-ups.
It was when he found out the real reason behind the break-up and faced the scrutinizing stare of Yuuri, that he couldn't help looking down at the ground and pretended to be more interested in the dirt that he drew figure eights on with his shoes, rather than the details of the break-up that Yuuri wanted him to digest .
And as Yuuri continued talking about her concern towards her best friend and hinted at his indirect role in her love life and 'how she had absolutely no idea where she could be', Touma took a breath and decided to just give in. Because they both knew he knew exactly where to find her.
He was out the door without a second glance back.
Touma found her sitting alone on the bench on the hill top, staring up at the dusky sky contemplatively, and without a second thought he sat down next to her carefully, unsure of how to start up a conversation. She didn't need to turn her head to know it was him; it was built in her system, this internal radar that let her detect his presence flawlessly when he was near to her.
They sat in silence for some time before she finally spoke. "He thought I wanted him to be more like you."
He didn't comment immediately, observing her side profile slowly, studying the way her small nose jutted out ever so slightly, and her eyes were still watery from before (but just as doe-like and childlike as always) refusing to meet his gaze. He wanted to ask her if it was true or not, if she would deny it if it was and if they would just pretend it was not like they always did. But then when she finally turned to him, he realized it was not necessary to ask.
She knew the answers to his unspoken questions just as well as he did and it was pointless going around the borders of a circle, if neither of them planed going in completely.
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vii. cause i've searched for so long, the answer is clear.
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There was a magnified silence overwhelming the space between them.
"Kikuchi-kun?"
And it was then he realized how extraordinary she was. Because she was a shape-shifter, a world mover, a prodigal of sorts, with a spirit beyond glorified perfection, maybe something much more euphoric and magical than he could ever understand. All he knew now was she would stop the world with her ceaseless imagination, with the trail of dreams she gathered from the Milky Way. And the star-like aura that made her seem slightly spacey or scatter-brained sometimes, in actuality was completely paralyzing once you took the time to look at it."
"Kikuchi-kun, are you there?"
Suddenly he saw her in a completely different light and it was so unbelievable, he wanted to start laughing.
He inhaled the scent of Japanese blossom trees and chlorine, letting the slight twinge of eloquent dreams that laid somewhere in the middle of it all sober him up and overwhelming his senses if only for a little while.
He had all the time in the world to fall in love, just like she had all the time in the world to dream.
"Yes, I'm here."
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viii. it's taken so long, so long to finally see.
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"Deep down, you actually do want to get to know me which is exactly why you're gonna ask me to go out with you ten seconds from now."
Silence.
He blinked. "What?"
"Yep."
"Wait, do you want to go out with me?"
"Well if you insist, I guess I can't exactly say no," she responded, an artful smile painted across her pink lips, and then she turned around, already walking towards the door.
He looked at her retreating back, dumbfounded by the turn of events, "Wait, what just happened?"
She sighed haughtily, "You ask way too many questions. Stop thinking so much and just go with it."
"Excuse me?"
She rested her hands on either side of her hips. "Are you coming or not? I don't have all night."
He thought about it for a second, before rolling his eyes and deciding to just give in.
He couldn't resist the small smile that broke across his face as she led the way down the corridor.
There was something about her. He just couldn't put his finger on it just yet, but it was okay. He liked it, whatever it was.
Well, he shouldn't have been that biased from the beginning.
And maybe this was what knowing was all about.
A/N: Like you can see, this is something like "What happened if she met Touma first?", it's something not really related to the following of the manga. Just some fluff about how Touma might (or might not) fell in love with Futaba (whose feelings are clearly a romantic way). The guy she had a relationship with was obviously Kou, but in my imagination, if she met Touma before him, it would turn out like that. Since I don't like it how oblivious Futaba seems about Touma's feelings, I changed it a bit. Hope you still like my matured-character-and-not-related-to-the-manga-one-shot.
Review ~*