Trololo, it feels good to have my writing muse back. Anywho, this one's a KanameMisaki fic because honestly, they actually have good couple potential and Kaname's a dear whom I love too much. Oh, and in reference to one of My Hopeless Romantic's drabbles in The Space Between Dream and Reality, I used the comparison she made between Misaki and the rain (as mentioned by Kaname, giving me this idea). Yeah so thanks. ^_^
Disclaimer: Gakuen Alice copyright © Tachibana Higuchi, 2003-Present
Rainy Days & Tomato Soup
by foxtrotelly
~ Dedicated to The Crow and the Butterfly ~
I know it's been such a looooooooooong time but here goes: I'm glad you didn't get mauled by eight hundred screaming children. There I said it. Oh, and happy birthday. :)
—
She came in like the rain.
...
The day she entered my hospital room, I was immediately stunned.
It wasn't because of how she looked, no.
But she was pretty, alright; really pretty in a spunky, I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass sort of way with her light red hair that tumbled to her shoulders in waves, high-arched eyebrows and vibrant eyes that just seemed to be fiercely alight with their very own flame — which right away brought me to the conclusion of how I was strongly convinced that she looked like something out of a yanki-esque comic book.
It wasn't in the fashion of her "intrusion".
Though I was really startled when my door suddenly flew open and she stormed in, out of breath and very much flustered.
Nor was it in the way she first looked at me.
Admittedly however, my weak heart fluttered as she curiously eyed me with that discerning gaze of hers. At the same time, it also managed to make me feel squirmish and nervous inside.
After that, it took me some time to discern as to why I felt that way that day. All I know is that when we first met, it was raining and that she had a bowl of tomato soup in her hands.
...
Tomato soup. It was her favorite. The way she first told me about it, she explained its brief background in short clipped sentences.
Truancy. A fetish for warm, tart things. Kleptomaniac-like tendencies towards stationary hospital carts.
Silly, yeah, I know, she had once said.
But to this day, I'd still find myself shaking my head at how wrong she was about it that time. That was how Harada Misaki and I met, after all.
...
No sooner than later, we had become very good friends.
So I told her my story.
A retelling of my past. How I had been born with a heart defect. How I was taken away from home after they discovered my special gift. How my parents decided not to have anymore children in fear of those two things happening to any of my future siblings. Being admitted to the infirmary right away as soon as I entered the Academy.
A narration of the present. Bland hospital food. The slowest days of boredom. My occasional breathing fits and some frequent pain. Those kinds of stuff.
Then, an insight of the future. I had been unsure of it. My condition only made it possible for me to feel like my stay here was a lost cause. All I could do to stop the tears from leaking out of my eyes was give her a shrug and force out a small smile.
She didn't tell me then, but I had found out the following day when she showed up in my room again with a pad of post-its and pen that she did see through me. That was when she asked me of the future I would like to see. One that was worth seeing. And one that should be worth living for.
And so I told her of my dreams.
To have, what I heard the other recurring patients delight over, a taste of what they had called Howalon. To meet new people. To make someone's day. To race down the hallways in a wheelchair, just as I have fantasized before as a kid. To find a donor for my heart. To possibly graduate — to be free from this place. And then, the most foolish of all my wishes — to be part of a family. A happier family. Or to just live and start over, in general.
She had liked my honesty and my immediate openness towards her, admitting that I was one of the few very special things that kept her going every day ever since she got here. I didn't need any more convincing to secretly admit to myself that I felt exactly the same too.
And then a day after that, it had happened. I first felt it, warm and new, coursing through my thoughts, as I looked out the window, eagerly waiting for her to come back to visit. I felt it aching in me in all my disappointment when she didn't arrive around the time she usually did. But then when a nurse bringing me a paper bag came in instead of her, I felt it tugging at my chest, stronger this time, as I looked at the bowl of tomato soup on my table and held the brightly-colored box of Howalon in my hands.
It had a note attached to it, saying: To eat Howalons. Scrawled underneath that was: Have a dream at a time.
The thought had brought a smile to my face — and then and there I knew. That she was different. That she was something. That she had been the closest thing I had to family. That she was amazing.
And that I did like her.
...
Days, weeks, and soon months, came and went.
We talked about almost anything when she cut classes—no matter how much I had half-heartedly advised her against it—and came over; including bits of her life that left me thinking how she was still able to survive it all. Living through friendless years of being either mocked or feared for being Alice. Learning to defend herself. And then going to the Academy to pay for her sick mother's treatment.
It had still rained frequently, but not as much anymore than on that day two months ago when I first met Misaki. And just as those cold, rainy days were made warm by her visits, the clear, cloudless ones were just plain unbearable, in life-threatening pain or not. But I held on—even on some numbered occasions when I was almost a goner—because she continuously gave me things to hold on to.
Like the bowls of tomato soup that she claimed were 'good for my heart' and her stories of Central Town and weird Math teachers that shot electricity out of wands that all sounded like tall tales to me. Like the dreams she made come true, one at a time. Some Central Town novelty merchandise. A picture of the class we supposedly had together. Then eventually, new friends — particularly a little girl in need of a new teddy after being taken away from her grandfather just a few weeks back and the rowdiest group I've ever met consisting of a charming, fun-loving guy with a tartan cap, a hilarious boy called Glasses and an older senior that had long hair and liked to hit on the nurses often who kept me good company on the days she wasn't around. And like how I hoped that she would show up again in my room after a day with or without her.
...
I hardly got mad at anything, ever. But since she had been an exception in almost everything, or anything, if she was involved I knew that that was where I had to draw a line. Which was why when on that one rainy day as I saw her lying helpless on an ER bed that rushed by my room, bloodied and wounded, the unfamiliar flash of hot white in my vision overwhelmed even myself.
After that, it seemed like she had made more trips to the infirmary for herself rather than me.
...
The day I received the paper bag that had a bowl of soup and a pair of sneakers, as I still fondly remember, had been the most exciting day of my life. But it weren't those things that made it so memorable. It was the note that came with them:
To race down the hallways in a wheelchair, top-speed ahead.
The day that followed had been the most exhilarating. Because sure enough she showed up through my door on that day on the time she usually came, wheelchair in tow, as if it was like any normal visiting day and she wasn't sporting an arm cast just the week before.
You laced up those sneakers tight, Cap'n? she had asked, winking playfully at me.
And just like that, I had hopped on almost immediately. She took the wheel. Tearing down the halls, screaming my head off and causing such commotion with her made me forget. My lonely days. The big, big trouble we could possibly get into afterwards. That she could be here with me today and gone the next on missions I secretly knew the Academy was giving her. Being dead. Everything. Because then, it was just Misaki and me.
I had been brought to life.
But like all dreams, that one too had to come to an end.
It had all been a blur. One minute I was racing away on a wheelchair, the next I was blacking out as a sharp, suffocating pain stabbed at my chest, excruciating unlike any other pain I'd ever felt before. It was terrifying. The last things I heard were the nurses and doctors all assuring me that I would be alright. She was the last thing I saw and felt as she ran by my side, held my hand and mouthed words that only told me one thing.
Hold on.
Then I passed out after that.
...
Many different feelings surge through me.
Shock. Then eventually ease as I settle in. I open my eyes and feel some more register to me. Surprise to see and hear rain pattering against my window this late in the season. And somewhat of an estranged instinct from the world of consciousness. Then…a new feeling of strength pumping and beating away in my chest.
A bit panicked, I place my hand over my chest and sure enough feel it there, strong and new even under the pads of bandages over it. I let my hand rest on my chest for a while until I realize that it actually hurts and remove my hand from it right away.
For a moment, I lie down on the same bed in the same room I've always had and take it all in. It is only when I look to my right and see that unfailing bowl of soup on my bedside that my world lurches to an immediate and startling stop — on it was a note with words as clear as day.
To live.
And like that she came out with the rain.
Well that certainly took a long time, didn't it? I suck. Oh and if you happened to get it (that Misaki didn't walk into an operation room fully-alive for a transplant surgery and that she died on a mission and already had her heart signed up for donation to Kaname) before you read what I just said, then congratulations to you for understanding how my logic and (failtacular and WOOOH!rushed) subliminal writing style work.
Review?