Standard disclaimers apply.
Summary: Ayako muses on matters of womanhood and how they pertain to her affections for a certain simple brunette. Ayako X Haruko, yuri. One shot.
A/N: To mix stream of consciousness and yuri with my lack of romantic knowledge and obsession with T. S. Eliot is a recipe for disaster. Nevertheless, please review, if only to tell me how much this sucked.
It was a tranquil day by any standard. Sunny, but not too hot. There was just enough of a breeze so that the air didn't feel stuffy and still did not ruin your hair – your hair that was so delicately styled that it looked insouciant, for if people knew that you paid too much attention to your hair, they might think you were like all the other girls. Not that Ayako particularly feared being judged outside her natural habitat, her home the basketball court, or of being regarded as unfeminine. (The horror!)
"You look stunning today, Ayako,"— referring to her leather outfit, which she wore when she needed to feel like a woman; but she was careful to avoid sunlight. The irony of damaged leather clothes would be… Just what would it be? Miyagi might be able to tell her – he who regarded her with the same dull, lascivious infatuation every day.
Had she led him on? Did it look as if she had led him on?
She was well aware of how jealous her classmates were of her propinquity to the basketball club. How had she, plain and unassuming as she was, gained access to that most sacred of sancta, the demesne of men? Though she was a man on the basketball court, for all practical purposes – otherwise how did they tolerate her? Except Miyagi – to him she was a woman among women.
"Aya-chan!" Miyagi's eyes were instantly, expectedly, aglow with love when Ayako entered the gym. "You look beautiful today. I wish you'd dress like this every day, not just Sundays…"
A blush would have been welcome – some sign of hesitation before making such a bold judgement about her appearance – some fear of the consequences of thus undressing her with his words. Bold.
"If I wore this every day, you'd get bored with me." She winked. Her vindication lay in her occasional sassiness, her sly smile, her thrusting her hips slightly to one side, which served to conceal – absolutely nothing. It was as if the reward for her womanhood were to stare abroad over the top of the hill she had just climbed at a vast, interminable nothingness – with Miyagi a speck of uncertainty in the middle distance. (And who was that on the farther side?…)
A strike dealt with her paper fan; then the scuttling of feet, and the commencement of that heady monotony which had come to be the only thing she looked forward to these days: Captain Akagi thundering like a tank at the head of a train of basketball players in shorts and tee-shirts stained with sweat; Sakuragi breaking the rhythm of the drill with his ill-timed and ill-controlled sprints and halts; Miyagi waving demurely at her every time they finished a round.
(Expectant Miyagi, stubborn Miyagi.)
Soon a group of girls would run into the gym – Haruko Akagi and her friends – ah, here they were now. Ayako acknowledged them with a nod. (How unfeminine! Maybe she should move farther away, so that her femininity was not diminished.) But oh, here she was now, Haruko Akagi, running over to her like a dog wanting to be petted – or, in short, like Haruko Akagi.
"Ayako-san! It's so great that you're able to come here even on Sundays. From the looks of it, you've been busy," she giggled.
It took a moment for Ayako to realize that Haruko Akagi was referring to her fancy clothes. Yes, she looked quite stunning in them, even she had to admit – quite the woman. Might she pretend to have been out with men?
Suddenly she remembered that she had forgotten to do her lips, and cursed.
Now Haruko Akagi was standing a mere two feet away. Now she would see plain, dried lips against fancy clothes, and wonder… But what would she wonder? Perhaps nothing at all. The worst fate one could suffer was not to be thought of at all.
If Ayako had Haruko Akagi's skill for womanhood, she might be able to stare with her sort of intensity at Miyagi – or Mitsui-san, or even Captain Akagi. Haruko Akagi's passion for Rukawa – dull, vapid Rukawa, an animated corpse on the court – could be described in human words only in such terms as Ayako found singularly odious, for she hadn't Haruko's simple, straightforward way of comprehending it. If she had Haruko Akagi to herself, she might be able to learn from her. But then there would be no need for it anyway.
/end