1Satsuki needs more love. As a character, she fascinates me - I love those emotionless girls. This is my first attempt at a dark romance and writing in the present tense, and I'm just learning so I really would like some constructive criticism. This story is girls' love, so if that sort of thing bothers you, this isn't the right fic. Without further ado, I present to you, "Otherside." And yes, I am aware that the title isn't grammatically correct.
Satsuki and X belong to CLAMP.
The sky is yellow-grey with smog, thick and heavy and choking the Tokyo streets. The wind wails like a scorned love and the air feels unpleasantly damp and dense, but there is no rain.
There hasn't been for months.
She smooths her skirt, picks at her wool stockings. It is January, but she still feels terribly hot. Her cheeks burn and her palms sweat. A thousand pairs of eyes stare, apathetic, uninterested. She is just another new student, nameless, faceless - a drone like all of them. She stands no more than an inch above five feet, her eyes are a soft and an unusual ice blue, her hair long and dark brown and uniform, but her skirt and jacket are bloody red. A transfer student. Despite her looks, she does not stand out at all.
Sensei announces her presence with a cool voice.
"We are pleased to welcome a new student today . . ." Sensei looks at the girl expectantly, cocking her head and blinking. It takes several seconds for the girl to realize Sensei can't remember her name.
"Gillespie. Nana Gillespie," she says in a half-whisper. It is a western name, as out of place and foreign as her blue eyes. A brave bespectacled boy in the back greets her, but the rest stay quiet. Many people come and go here. The little western girl is no different from the rest of them.
Sensei smiles, but her eyes do not. She is pretty and fairly young, but her face is lined with weariness and her eyes are dull and half-concealed behind foggy coke-bottle glasses. She motions for Nana to take a seat.
The girl stumbles into a middle seat, dropping her bag at her feet. Her body feels like a marionette with the strings cut - loose and not her own. She puts her notebook on her desk and neatly arranges her pencils and pen. It calms her down a bit, the pleasant monotony of organization. A place for everything and everything in its place.
Sensei begins to speak, but Nana does not hear the words. Something about World War II. She looks at her hands, folded in her lap. They seem very far away. Today is January first. New Year's, 1999. A new age dawns.
"Gillespie? Can you read page 217 in our textbook for us?"
She jerks her head up, stutters a yes. Her hands shake as she fumbles for her textbook. She flips to the page, but it swims in front of her eyes. She can't speak, her tongue seems to swell in her mouth. She coughs.
Sensei pushes her glasses up on her nose. She is not pleased. "Yatouji? Can you help her, please?"
Heads turn. Yatouji is the Rich Girl. Yatouji is the Genius.
Yatouji is the Untouchable.
She clears her throat and reads. Her voice is flat, devoid of inflection, but smooth. She makes no mistakes, she does not stutter, she does not say an "um" or an "uh."
Sensei thanks her. Nana does too, in her head. She smiles at Yatouji, and Yatouji sees.
She does not smile back.
Her hair is short, pulled loosely back from her face. A streak of chestnut runs down her bangs, and Nana wonders if it is natural. She wears heavy glasses like Sensei. Her body is thin, lean, boyish. Pretty, if one could call her that.
Nana turns her head and straightens her pencils.
The day moves by blessedly uneventfully. No more embarrassing incidents. By the time the sun begins dip below the cityscape horizon, Nana is exhausted and quite ready to go home. The days are so long here.
She puts her school shoes back into the locker. The clouds had dissolved at noon, and soft creamsicle-colored light enfolds the hallway, deserted save her. A door clangs somewhere in the distance, and a boy shouts something to his friends. The rest is silence. Nana slips out of her skirt and lets it slide to the linoleum floor with a rustle. Goosebumps speckle her skin - do they turn the heater off at this time of day? She starts on the buttons of her blouse.
"Nana Gillespie."
Nana cries out, her hand jerks and a button falls to the floor.
"I didn't mean to scare you." The girl from earlier in the day stands with a hand on one hip and that same blank expression on her face. Two lumpy bags hang off her shoulders.
The initial shock has worn off, but Nana's heart continues to flutter like a songbird's. The girl is not that much taller than Nana, but she seems so much larger. She opens her mouth to speak, but the words catch in her throat. She blushes vivid red.
The girl does not speak either. Nana can't read her face, but she isn't laughing - that's a start.
"What's your name again?" Nana clamps a hand over her mouth. Her voice sounds like it belongs to another person, soft and scratchy with disuse.
"Yatouji. Yatouji Satsuki." She drops the bags at her feet and shuffles through her locker.
"T-t-thank you, Yatouji-san, for earlier today . . ." Nana lets her hair fall over her face and stares intently at her bare feet.
"Aren't you a little old to wear such cutesy panties?" Yatouji asks off-handedly.
Nana cries out yet again. Her hands fly to her chest, then to her cutesy panty-clad nether regions in a desperate attempt to shield herself.
Yatouji pays no attention, instead stepping lithely out of her uniform.
Nana blushes even more deeply and pulls on her street clothes. "So . . . um, Yatouji-san, do you belong to a club?" Nana hates small talk, but there seems to be no other way to break the quiet between them.
"I play tennis."
"Oh - is it fun?"
"No."
"Oh." Nana fidgets. Yatouji is dressed in record time, but the other girl still stands dumbstruck and blushing furiously, her hands fumbling with the zipper of her skirt. "And thank you again, Yatouji-san."
"You can call me Satsuki-san." Satsuki shoulders her bags again and walks off without another word.
Nana sighs. Something about Satsuki makes her terribly nervous. Maybe she is "antisocial," like one of those serial killers that lurk in dark corners on TV. She shakes the thought from her head, no, no, no. Satsuki is probably just "stoic." That's what they call it. Maybe she is shy, like Nana herself. She certainly does it a whole lot better.
She pulls her sweater over her head and picks up her bag. Okaa-san should be here by now.
The shadows have deepened now, and the temperature has dropped with the sun. Nana shivers and wonders why she didn't wear something warmer than her blue-striped sweater. The front of the school is cloaked in shadow and silent, save a soft metallic clank in the distance. No husky rumble of a motor, no tense and worried, "Nana-chan? Nana-chan, I've been waiting for you . . ."
She wonders what time it is. A horrible thought strikes her; what it Okaa-san has already come and gone? Would she be spending the night here? Her toes curl inside her boots and her heart thuds. Something rattles behind her, and she jumps like a frightened cat. Nothing there. She sighs. Maybe there's a payphone nearby.
"Nana-chan? Nana-chan!"
"Okaa-san!" Nana cries. A deep red sedan pulls up at the curb, window rolled down. A smallish, bland woman in a teal sweater and her black hair in a loose bun peers out. "Nana-chan? I've been waiting for an hour. Where were you?"
"I was at school, Okaa-san."
"Just get in the car, Nana-chan, please." The girl complies, and looks down shamefully.
"Okaa-san?" she says softly.
"Yes?" Okaa-san stares intently at the road ahead.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize . . . just please don't do it again. What on earth were you doing?"
"Cleaning."
Okaa-san sighs and shakes her head. A grey hair falls from her bun. "Cleaning for an hour and a half?"
"Yes, Okaa-san. My locker was really, really dirty."
"Nana-chan . . ."
The girl pulls at a hangnail. A bead of blood bubbles up to the surface and clings to the edge of her thumbnail. Nana puts the injured thumb in her mouth.
"Nana-chan, I'm worried. You're just so . . ."
Nana says nothing.
"Maybe we should get you checked you out or something."
Still silence.
"I love you, Nana-chan."
"Me too, Okaa-san."