Chikaru x Miyuki
Spreading the Colours
"Unicorns and cannonballs, palaces and piers,
Trumpets, towers and tenements, wide oceans full of tears
And flags, rags, ferry boats, scimitars and scarves
Every precious dream and vision underneath the stars
You climbed on the ladder with the wind in your sails
You came like a comet blazing your trail
Too high, too far, too soon: you saw the whole of the moon"
The Waterboys
School had ended with more speed than she had wanted or anticipated, and she had found herself at university. It had all come as quite a shock, really; the scant weeks between finding out she had been accepted at her first choice of university and moving here, settling in to a new town with a whole new set of people, the knowledge that the damned man she was supposed to be marrying had delayed the wedding until they had both graduated. That still remained a bone of contention nevertheless, another worry in her mind: the half brilliant, half ominous delay was still a question mark to her. She didn't understand why he had decided to wait, but she appreciated it, and hoped that it was an indication of his own unwillingness to enter into pre-arranged nuptials.
Maybe that was a futile hope, but it was something to hold on to, and she had become very well practised at holding on to the impossible.
University seemed to go by in such a blur. The first year passed in a whir of all of those things that she simply had to do, though most of them, she really did not. Of course, there was the unavoidable university work; there were always essays to write and studying to do, lectures to attend and teachers that she needed to discuss the vital parts of her written coursework with, seminars that needed preparation for, projects that needed organising and completing.
And then, of course, there were the societies that she had joined and had quickly found herself in the position of leader once more. It was inevitable, it seemed, that people turned to her for organisational help. She was just one of those people that seemed to radiate competence. It was a painful irony and a personal slight, she thought, that she would never be allowed to run her own family business; as her father had no male heir, it would be passed, due to what she considered to be practically prehistoric tradition, to her husband's no doubt incompetent hands.
Of course, that didn't stop her father sending her work to do for the business, cheerfully announcing to her down the phone that it was 'good practise'. She sometimes thought that he forgot that she was a woman.
That wasn't the only contact she had from her family; she also had to cope with almost daily phone conversations with her mother, grandmother, and other various elderly relatives. They asked pestering questions about her private life and her appearance, reminded her that any sort of romantic relationship would be completely inappropriate and would bring shame on the family, and had she had her hair styled recently, because you know you have a tendency towards split ends, dear. Not to mention the unimpressed murmurs when she spoke of her course at university- they didn't really understand why she even bothered going into further education, and if she must, couldn't she have done a nice simple arts course at the local university, rather than an Economics degree far away from home?
But she coped with it.
She always coped with it.
In Miyuki's world, everything was perfectly compartmentalised. She found time to do everything, and had everything organised in her mind.
Her first year passed in a blur in this way; it was only as she was moving out of her student accommodation for the first year that she realised that she had never gotten around to decorating it like she had intended, with posters and photographs like everyone else in the neighbouring rooms.
She had met very few people that she knew she could call friends, but there were a couple of girls on her course who worked with the same fervour as she did, who she got along with quite well. Sometimes they went out for drinks together, to blow off steam, and they found things to laugh at together. They moved into a reasonably sized apartment for the second year of her degree, straight from her university room. She didn't even go home for the break.
Second year started much the same as the second.
She was a virtual recluse in terms of night life; but for the few occasions when Shizuma (and it was a lovely coincidence that they had been accepted into the same university) dragged her out for the night. She always stood awkwardly in the corner, looking and feeling entirely uncomfortable in the busy bars and clubs that Shizuma seemed to enjoy whole heartedly. Of course, the days that Nagisa came to visit, Miyuki saw and heard virtually nothing from her friend.
There was so much in her life, it seemed impossible to imagine anything else.
Sometimes that scared her, but she never told anyone.
Then, one day, something happened that changed all of that. On this inconspicuous day in the middle of the third month of her second year, someone knocked on her door with a firm knock, and with a sigh Miyuki rose to answer it.
She had been expecting a salesman; perhaps someone dropping off a package for one of the other girls.
Instead, she had found Chikaru, and really, her life hadn't been the same since.
She hadn't known what Chikaru's plans were after graduation, hadn't known that she had been accepted at a university in the same city, one of the most prestigious Arts colleges in the country. Why hadn't she known? Because with everything else in her world, Miyuki really didn't have the time or the space to deal with anyone else, anyone unnecessary. She thought of herself sometimes a discount airline; she had baggage restrictions, and there was only so much that she could carry. Most people noticed this, did not try to push themselves in closer, and yet, despite every signal that she gave the girl, Chikaru did not seem to care.
Chikaru was… something else.
Something else entirely.
It worried her, sometimes, that she had spent at least an hour of nearly every day sat with this girl when she had been on the Student Council for Miator, spent so much time in her short life sat opposite or next to this girl, and yet she knew so little about her. How did that make sense?
And Chikaru was like a bullet, shattering the glass that was her world. All of a sudden Miyuki found herself dragged out all the more often, not to bars and clubs where she simply felt awkward but to small cafes and restaurants, where she could sit in anonymous booths and corners and listen to the conversation flowing around her between Chikaru's bizarre but entertaining friends. After a while, she even found herself joining in a little.
Chikaru came over to her house often as well, to talk, to show her things she had made, to play her music that she had recently discovered. Her time was suddenly demanded by this girl that had barged her way into Miyuki's life without invitation or obvious motivation, this girl who appeared at her door with new clothes that she had created with her mind, insisting she accompanied her to student performances and small, art-house plays.
All of a sudden her wardrobe was full of colours that she had never worn before, her pin board covered in tickets to things that she would never have seen without prompting, her fridge always had a bottle of wine in it for those nights where to two of them curled up in armchairs, in soft light, Miyuki listening to all the wonderful and fascinating tales that Chikaru had to tell.
She never said much herself, but she always smiled.
She had thought that her life was too busy for anyone else, but Miyuki had never quite learnt the knack of saying no: each time she opened the door she faltered, wanting to tell Chikaru that she had too much to do, even if she didn't. It was an automatic reaction, she thought, but didn't know whether or not to fight it. She supposed it was lucky that Chikaru had a 'never take no for an answer' attitude; there was no way she could ignore such persistent knocking on the figurative door to her own solitude.
Though she tried to protest, the firm and unwavering attitude that had moved so many to agree with her just seemed to radiate from Chikaru, as if she didn't notice negativity at all. Soon enough it became Miyuki who found herself wavering, who found that, actually, she was growing to quite like this intrusive interruption of her normally so strict routine, found that, with time, she actually came to enjoy being dragged from her work to go out and play.
She even liked the clothes that Chikaru made her, too, though the thought of wearing them without her friend by her side scared her a little. Her old uniform had been perfect for her, covering everything and making her unnoticeable in the crowd of girls, but Chikaru made dresses of bright colours, clothes that showed her shoulders and her legs and her pale skin, clothes that made her noticeable, that got her attention.
It only made her uncomfortable when people watched her walking by, when strangers stopped to stare.
She didn't understand it, didn't realise that she moved with a grace made all the more powerful by how grave she appeared, didn't notice that when she smiled, it lit up her face.
She started walking straighter at Chikaru's insistence, her pseudo-confident posture stopping her from blending in quite as much. Miyuki wasn't sure why she had become a project for the other girl, just smiled when Chikaru would berate her for not making the best of what she had as she measured her frame again and again for alterations, bringing her flowers to pin in her hair.
Shizuma noticed the difference in her friend, but said nothing. She knew Miyuki well enough to know that drawing her attention to the fact that she was in love too soon would only end badly.
Miyuki was envious, the first time she went in Chikaru's small, studio apartment. It was swathed in reams of material, in plush toys she'd made, scarves draped over the curtain rails and throws half-covering a comfortable, battered sofa. The lighting was always warm, shining through lamp shades that Chikaru had lovingly crafted herself.
The walls were covered in posters painted with fairy tale scenes and reproductions of artwork. She gave Miyuki some, tacking them up for her to try and make her room look nicer: some with princesses, some with unicorns, some with images that made her remember her childhood, a time long since past that still prayed on her regardless.
She made her a patchwork throw to cover Miyuki's plain, grey bed covers, in a brilliantly bright mismatch of patterns and colours and fabrics.
One day Miyuki woke up, and looked around, and realised that there was so much colour in her life now that she couldn't go back.
And it scared her.
Most of all, she knew with a sudden clarity that there was no way that she could ever let go of the girl that had changed her dreary world, full of deadlines and decisions and responsibility and fear for a future that she could not change. She walked with confidence now because she felt confident, because she knew that Chikaru believed in her.
She was happy with her life because Chikaru distracted her from all that made her unhappy; she was content because she no longer thought of love as something that she would never, ever be able to hold.
She woke refreshed each day only because her dreams were full of gentle smiles and soft, dark hair. Songs from 'Carmen' floated through her subconscious. She found herself seeing red ribbons in the hair of strangers in the street and smiling. All of a sudden she could brush off the comments from her family because now she had a reason to look forward to the next day, something that they couldn't take away from her with their rules and disapproval.
And so, later that day, when Chikaru knocked on the door with a grin and a clothes bag containing a new dress for the girl she had fallen in love with long ago, when they both wore uniforms and were both full of confusion, she was surprised to be met with a kiss on the doorstep. It was sweet, and short, and Miyuki pulled away with a horrified expression, as if she really hadn't meant to do what she had just done.
Chikaru just smiled, and handed her the new dress.
"Come out with me tonight?"
Miyuki took the dress, and hesitantly smiled back.