My first attempt at writing M/S fanfiction. I'm not new to the fandom, but I only started reading M/S fanfiction quite recently. Also, I haven't written much in the past year, so my writing skills are rather...off. Forgive me for any inaccuracies, grammatical errors, etc., and I hope you have fun reading this. Let me know what you think:)

The Perfect Moment


I've seen a lot of movies in my lifetime. I've seen a number of thrillers, dramas, comedies...

Romances.

I'll never admit it to anyone, but I loved every minute of The Notebook. I weeped buckets when I watched Titanic. I used up two boxes of Kleenex after watching Sleepless in Seattle.

The entire male species should be ashamed of me.

Luckily though, only one other person in the entire universe knows about this certain weakness of mine.

Her name is Taijiya Sango.

We've been friends since high school. We went to the same university. We had the same circle of friends. Basically, we were practically joined at the hip for almost ten years.

I'm guessing you already have an idea where I'm getting at.

I haven't talked to her in a week. In the entire time I've known Sango, this the longest time we haven't spoken to each other.

The last time I spoke to her was on her wedding.

She's on her honeymoon now, and she'll be back in a couple of days. She and her husband were Literature classmates in college who had lost touch after that school year. They met again after bumping into each other in a grocery store in Shibuya.

It's pretty rare to find people who end up marrying the person they love the most. A lot of people end up marrying people who they don't really love, but they marry them anyway because they want security. They say it's more practical that way.

It's sad, but that's how people's minds work nowadays. People value stability more than anything else, and love is reduced to become an unattainable dream.

But who am I to speak, anyway? I let the woman I love the most marry another man. I let the woman I love the most get away without even putting up a fight.

I've wondered over and over, ever since she announced her engagement, whether Sango falls into the same category as me, the people who will never be with the person they love the most. I don't know for sure, but when she announced her engagement, there was a moment wherein our eyes had locked and I could clearly see the sadness and doubt in her eyes. I remember just staring at her, feeling nothing but the pain in my chest and the cold numbness in my heart. Perhaps that was what Noah felt when Allie came back to him after seven years of not seeing each other, only to find out that she was engaged to be married.

I guess watching all those romantic movies with Sango has warped my idea of love, and all the alcohol I've been consuming this past week has totally altered my concept of reality. Add to that the lack of sleep and too much TV, and you've got yourself a blubbering idiot--a blubbering, cowardly idiot who never confessed his feelings to the woman he loves, who has decided that it'd be best if he just kept his mouth shut and never let the woman he loves know that she means the world to him.

A framed picture of me and Sango in high school, along with a bunch of our friends back then, is sitting on my bookshelf. It was taken during the annual sports festival, if I remember correctly. I played tennis, and altough she was part of the track team, she never missed any of my games. I sighed. Was I already in love with her back then? Perhaps.

I took a swig of the beer as I stared at the picture. Before I realized it, a smile as bitter as the beer started to form on my lips. Sango and I were standing next to each other in the picture. In fact, in all the pictures Sango and I had together, we were always standing next to each other.

But why wasn't I the man who was standing next to her on her wedding day?

Right. I was too afraid. I should've confessed to her. I should've fought for my love for her. But I didn't do anything. When she and her husband first started dating (he was her first boyfriend ever), I tried not to think too much about it because I've dated quite a number of women in my life, so what did it matter if Sango finally tried her hand in dating? It never occured to me that they would end up getting married.

I stared at another framed picture of us in high school. It was on our graduation day. We looked so young, so happy and carefree. A nostalgic feeling suddenly washed over me. I felt all my regrets build up inside my chest, and I couldn't breathe. I've never felt the need to reverse time this badly.

Someone buzzed at the door. The clock on the wall read 3:15 PM. A week ago at this exact minute, Sango walked down the aisle. Someone's still buzzing at the door.

I don't know how I managed, being half-drunk and all, to stand up. "I'm coming!" I shouted, my temper slowly rising. The next thing I knew, my hand was on the door knob, ready to open the door. The buzzing still won't stop. I pulled the door open.

...but no one was there.

Instead, a package sat on my doormat. It was the size of a shoebox. I reached down for it, inspected it closely, and closed the door. I went back to the living room. I stared at the mysterious package as I placed it on the coffee table. It could be a small puppy. Or it could very well be a bomb. At that thought, I didn't feel scared. I realized that I sort of wished it was a bomb, so I can just die.

I felt for the end of the tape so I can finally open the package. I tore the tape away, opened the flaps...

And a thingamajig that looked like a digital alarm clock was sitting inside the box. In bright red numbers, it read:

2007 06 15 3:17 PM

I felt my breath catch a little. It probably WAS a bomb. A bright red button that had the word 'PRESS' on it was on the rightmost side of the thingamajig. Was this the trigger or something? I searched the box for any note, any warning, any manual. It was empty. I turned the thingamajig over, and there was no other switch, no other button...there wasn't even a single screw. It was just a black box.

I grabbed the can of beer that sat beside me. Who in the world would give me such a present? I was spooked, not to mention confused.

A minute had passed. Should I press the damn button? I started thinking. Another minute passed. I noticed how each digit on the clock started blinking rapidly. Was the bomb's timer slowly ticking away? Was my apartment going to explode in a few seconds? Was I about to die?

I took another swig and felt the alcohol rush through my system. I opened my eyes. I'm definitely curious now. I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes as I rested my thumb on top of the red button. If I AM about to die, I want my last thoughts to be of...

"Ichi!"

...that girl I used to watch run around the oval track until the sun finally took its place behind the mountains and the moon and the stars shone brightly in the sky.

"Ni!"

...that girl with the low ponytail who I unknowingly ogled during my Calculus classes in college.

"SAN!"

...Sango.

"Uggghhhhh."

My head throbbed. I opened my eyes slowly. Am I dead? My eyes blinked rapidly as they adjusted in the light. I couldn't help but notice the small crowd around me...

"Houshi-san, are you alright?" I heard someone ask me. As my eyes started to clear, I noticed a rather familiar face peering at me, his face a mere inches away from mine...

"TAKASHI-SENSEI?!"

It was Takashi-sensei.

My PE teacher from my senior year in high school.