"Excuse me!"
Lan Fan ran through the subway station at breakneck speed.
The first year university student had almost been on time this morning, until she realized a block and a half from her apartment that she left her yugake and muneate in her duffle bag. Lan Fan usually kept her archery equipment in her backpack, but she'd gone home over the weekend for a visit. She spent the majority of the time at her grandfather's kyudojo.
The young archer had a competition coming up and needed the practice; There was no one better to help her prepare than her grandfather.
If Lan Fan didn't catch this train she'd definitely be late to chemistry. Lan Fan had already shown up tardy twice this semester. The graduate student teaching her Introduction to Chemistry course threatened to kick her out of the class if she showed up late a third time. Professor Edward Elric was a self important ass who thought his class should be at the top of everyone's priorities.
Her archery skills got her a full scholarship to one of the best universities in the country, but if a certain science teacher failed her she'd end up on academic probation. That meant losing her only means of paying tuition. As the first one in her family to go to university she wasn't about to let them down by icing out.
Lan Fan's first mistake was signing up for an eight o'clock class. Her second mistake was taking chemistry with Elric. Everyone had warned her Professor Elric's class was tough. Even the clerk at the registrar's office asked if she was sure she didn't want to wait until spring semester to take it with someone else. But Lan Fan wanted to get as many of her general education classes out of the way as she could her first year.
Besides, Lan Fan didn't back down from a challenge.
The stairs down to the platform teemed with commuters. Over the din of the crowd she heard the muffled overhead announcement that her train was about to depart the station. Lan Fan went for broke.
"Coming through!" she shouted.
The archer gripped the strap of her backpack and slid down the railing of the staircase.
Lan Fan landed on her feet at the bottom of the stairs. Bolting across the platform she managed to make it through the closing doors in time. Wisps of hair escaped her top knot, and she had gotten a bit sweaty from her mad dash to the station, but Lan Fan had made her train.
More importantly she had everything she needed for archery club.
Truth be told Lan Fan could've used the practice equipment at school but they weren't the ones grandfather had given her. Fu gave Lan Fan her own yugake and muneate on the day she graduated high school. He told her to make him proud and one day she would inherit the kyudojo.
Not her older brother Hiro or one of her cousins but Lan Fan.
Once she graduated college Grandfather would let her work at the kyudojo. Emphasis on graduate. If Lan Fan had her way she would already be working at the kyudojo, but Fu wanted her to get her education first.
Aside from not getting kicked out of chem there was one other reason Lan Fan didn't want to miss this train. The guy with the yellow headphones. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he took the seven-thirty train. Lan Fan didn't know the guy's name but he always wore the same bright yellow headphones and long black coat. She spotted him sitting in the seat next to the doors on the other side of the subway car. He almost always wore his hair in a ponytail but today he had it in a bun as messy as her own.
Lan Fan took hold of the strap hanger above her hand and angled herself so she could look at him out of the corner of her eye. She didn't dare make eye contact with the guy. Lan Fan barely knew how to talk to boys let alone handsome men.
Saying hello was out of the question.
Of course, Lan Fan had run the scenario through her head just about a thousand times. She could ask him what music he was listening to, but if he was listening to music that probably meant he didn't want anyone talking to him. Lan Fan used that tactic herself, and saved a few choice swear words for any idiot who ignored the blatantly obvious message of Don't Talk To Me.
Today, yellow headphones guy wore dark jeans and white t-shirt emblazoned with a cutesy panda on the front to go along with his dramatic black coat. The shirt seemed an odd choice.
'Maybe his girlfriend gave it to him,' Lan Fan thought.
Because of course he had a girlfriend. A pretty one who probably curled her hair every day, and knew how to use makeup and accessorize.
In other words the complete opposite of her.
On the floor between his sneaker clad feet sat a yellow backpack with black straps. Lan Fan wondered if yellow was his favorite color. The color reminded her of yellow camellias and wasn't that just perfect?
Yellow camellias meant longing in hanakotoba. Lan Fan's mother let her spend most of her free time at the kyudojo growing up, but she still had to learn to arrange flowers with her little sisters. Kana and Naomi were obsessed with hanakotoba. They were forever sending messages with flowers.
Lan Fan was the only one in her immediate family with a Chinese given name.
In grade school her classmates ridiculed her mercilessly for it. As she grew older she didn't mind it so much. Grandfather had given it to her after all. Fu named her after her great-grandmother. Her grandfather's father had apparently caused quite a scandal when he married Chinese girl.
Lan Fan considered her Chinese name a badge of honor, but she hated how it caused trouble for her sisters. She didn't care if people looked down on her for not being full Japanese, but she'd kick the ass of anyone stupid enough to bully her little sisters for being hafu.
Kana and Naomi didn't know about the guy with the yellow headphones. She hadn't told them how he tapped his right foot to the beat of his music, or how he had no trouble typing text messages with only one thumb. Lan Fan watched him wind and unwind the cord of his headphones around the fingers of his left hand.
He had such beautiful hands. His fingernails were filed into smooth crescents, nailbeds buffed shiny, and cuticles neatly trimmed. The archer glanced at her free hand. Lan Fan had a bad habit of biting her nails. She noticed she had a hangnail along the side of her thumbnail. A boy with beautiful hands would never want to take hers.
Lan Fan chanced another look at him.
The guy glanced up from his phone at the very same time. He caught her looking and smiled. Lan Fan's face grew hot. Her mouth went dry. She couldn't seem to break eye contact. Was it possible to die from mortification? If so it seemed a slow death. The embarrassed archer tore her gaze away.
'I can never take this train again,' Lan Fan thought.
The guy with the yellow headphones stepped in front of her, grabbed onto the strap above him, and pulled those headphones of his down around his neck.
"Hi."
"Hey," Lan Fan muttered.
"I'm Ling," he introduced himself
With a name like Ling she wondered if he was hafu. She certainly wasn't going to ask.
"I've seen you before," Ling said.
"I take this train a lot."
"What's your name?"
"Uh, it's Lan Fan," she answered.
Ling laughed.
"Your name is cold rice?" He tilted his head in curiosity.
"Orchid Fragrance," Lan Fan corrected.
He abruptly changed the subject.
"Are you hungry?"
"Huh?"
"All this talk of food is making me hungry. You should have breakfast with me, Cold Rice," he called her in Japanese.
"I have class," she said.
"Coffee then. I'll walk you to class," Ling offered.
"You want to get coffee with me?" Lan Fan gawked at him.
"Of course! Will you get coffee with me, Cold Rice?"
Lan Fan didn't have a chance to answer or tell him to stop calling her that. The rumble of the train beneath their feet transformed into a violent shake. The overhead lights flickered. The train tipped on its track. Lan Fan lost her grip. She fell into Ling and he wrapped his arm around her waist. Screams and screeching metal filled the air in a cacophony of nightmare soundscape.
The strap Ling held broke and the two of them fell.
Lan Fan landed on top of him. She lifted her head and saw the world tilt on it's axis. The archer shielded her other reason for being on this train with her body as the windows shattered and metal tore. Something sharp struck her shoulder. A scream drowned out all other sounds for her.
She didn't realize the scream was her own.
Lan Fan woke up to the sound of someone humming. She didn't recognize the ceiling above her. The room smelled like antiseptic. It smelled like a hospital so she figured that's where she must be. She thought she should be worried, but the morphine kept her cares at bay. Lan Fan turned her head toward the hum.
The guy from the train sat next to her hospital bed. He held her hand and hummed a song she didn't know off the top of her head. On her index finger she saw one of those little devices used to monitor your pulse. She had an I.V. port in the back of her hand.
"Hey, you're awake."
Lan Fan looked at Ling whose name she only just remembered. He wore a hospital gown and had an I.V. of his own and a stand to go with it. Ling had a bandage around his head and some scratches on his face, but otherwise looked no worse for wear.
"Hi."
Her voice sounded scratchy to her own ears.
"The nurse said only family in ICU. Your grandpa is on his way. If anyone asks I'm your boyfriend," Ling said.
"Boyfriend?"
"I hope you don't mind," he said in apology.
Lan Fan lifted her left hand to wave off his worry but it didn't move. She tried to turn her head to look. Ling put his hand on her cheek, pulled her focus back to him.
"You saved my life," Ling said, his voice raw with emotion.
"The train…" she recalled.
"There was an earthquake."
He still had his hand on her cheek. The guy who seemed to be missing his yellow headphones stroked his thumb along her cheekbone. Lan Fan became bashful. Even on morphine he still gave her butterflies.
"It's going to be okay," he promised.
"Where's my backpack?"
"Don't worry about that right now."
"I need my backpack."
Lan Fan turned her head to look for her backpack. She had to make sure she had her backpack. Her yugake and muneate were in there. Grandfather would be angry with her if she lost them. The archer didn't see her backpack nor did she see her bow arm.
"My arm," she intoned.
"I'm sorry," Ling said.
He sounded so broken when he said it. As if he was the one who had lost a limb and his whole life along with it. Lan Fan made an awful keening cry. She tried to touch the bandages, but Ling held onto her hand. It hardly took any effort on his part. The archer who could no longer hold a bow wailed in grief.
Lan Fan wished she was dead.
A nurse came in and injected something into her I.V.
The pain and the world washed away.