AN: wow. it's been a while since i've written a fanfic. well... i bet you can guess what i've been playing recently. SSX 3! huzzah. fun stuff. then i got the urge to read some fanfics... specifically from SSX... cause i remembered some good MacxKao ones... and then i thought this up. so yeah. there might be a bit of OOCness, especially with Mac, but that's just i can't write all gangster like he is. haha. so, enjoy.
Disclaimer: Don't own SSX, or any of character included therein.
Misunderstood
By Kaltmr
Kaori slowly opened the door to her room and closed it likewise. She didn't want to wake the roommate she assumed to be asleep. However, that person was all but asleep.
A flashlight shined at Kaori's face, causing her to squint. "And where have you been? Why are you coming back so late?"
"Elysia-chan!!" Kaori half-whined, bringing up her hand to cover her face. "I can't see!"
A voice laughed, and the flashlight went out, returning the room to it's previous darkness. A second later, a lamp went on, and Elise could be seen sitting up in her bed. She seemed to have been waiting for Kaori all this time.
"Spent the night out with Mac again?" Her eyes were wide with a desire for knowledge, a rare sight when it came to Elise. Out of all the SSX boarders, she had taken a special interest in Kaori's relationship with Mac. After all, sharing rooms with each other for the third circuit created a special, sisterly bond between the two.
Kaori looked around the room innocently. "Maybe..." She dragged out the word. Then, smiling, she jumped on the bed opposite Elise.
"Spill it." Elise commanded, threatening her with the flashlight, shining it in her face again for a moment.
"Ok, ok!" Kaori responded, taking in a deep breath, as the memories of the night came back to her. "Ma-chan was so sweet tonight..."
The two girls talked through most of the night, discussing what happened. The movie, the dinner. The moves made, the moves failed, and of course, the kiss before she had entered the room." Kaori blushed after describing it. "I don't know why you two don't make it official already..." Elise sighed, when the night had been fully recapped. "You two have been 'hanging out' together for a while now." She made air quotes to emphasize her statement. After a moments silence, Kaori opened her mouth to respond, but then said nothing. "Come one Kao! You like him, don't you?"
"I do..." She answered softly, "Demo, it's... kowaii. It scares me. Besides, how would I tell him? I get nervous... just thinking about it."
"Write him a letter!" Elise said as if it was the easiest thing possible. "You're good at that, you know? You could make it all pretty too... I'm sure he'd just love a pretty pink letter with hearts all over it." She laughed at the idea, and motioned around the room.
It was true. Kaori was good at putting things down on paper. As proof, the entire room was a photo album, with pictures of the SSX riders everywhere in a freestyle scrapbook kind of way. All of the pictures were perfectly described in a few words and decorated with stickers galore, all done by Kaori herself. It only started out as a few picture taped to the wall, but as people began taking notice, they encouraged her to do more. Now, people just naturally hand over whatever pictures they take during the circuit to Kaori, telling her to just 'add it to the wall'.
"Ok!!" Kaori nearly yelled out, walking over to her desk and pulling out some paper. "I'll do it!!"
"What, now?" Elise yawned, looking at the clock. "It's three in the morning already! And we have a race later tonight."
"You can go to sleep if you want, Elysia-chan. If I don't do this now... I'll never do it."
"Alright then..." Elise stifled back another yawn. "Good night then."
Kaori began writing out in Japanese. The characters just came to her naturally. Mac didn't have to be able to read it, per say. As long as she had it, she could tell her true feelings to him. Those feelings were flowing through her, as she wrote through the night...
—
A phone ringing awoke Kaori from her sleep. It wasn't even a deep sleep, it was more like a nap. She glanced at the clock, which read 7:45. "Ugh..." Kaori moaned, dragging herself to the phone. Not even two hours of sleep. She picked up the phone. "Moshi... moshi?"
"Good morning." The voice on the other end sounded too happy for this hour in the morning. "This is your wake up call. Miss Riggs is expected to be in the east meeting room at 10:00 for her pre-race interview."
"Hai... domo." Kaori mumbled, hanging up. "Ano sa..." She shook Elise a few times. "Wake up. Interview. Two hours. Get ready..."
Elise sat up and stretched as Kaori fell into her bed. "Damn interviews." she looked over at Kaori, who had almost already fallen asleep. "Don't tell me you stayed up all night! Did you finish the letter at least?"
"Mmph. Done. Table." she spoke from under her pillow and flung her arm in the general direction of her desk.
Walking over to the desk, Elise picked up the sheets of paper strewn across it. They were full of writing, but it was all in Japanese. Hand drawn hearts, stickers, and other small, meaningless yet, full of feeling drawings covered whatever blank space there was. "Hate to break it to you hon, but I don't think Mac can read Japanese. Certainly not with all these drawings you've got on here. It's cute though."
"Mmph. Translate. Him. Later. Sleepy..." Kaori flailed her arm again, attempting to get her meaning across.
Elise smiled. She was happy for Kaori, if nothing else. She took a quick shower and put on a clean change of clothes when a knock came at the door. "Unless you're room service, bug off!" Elise called out, opening the door. "I've got a meeting I can't... oh." Mac stood at the door, acting quite shifty. "If it's Kaori you want, she just went to bed." She looked over her shoulder and saw Kaori, already snoring.
"Uh... no. I... er... can we talk about something for a minute? Over... coffee or something? If you don't mind." He seemed really nervous...
Elise paused, and then closed the door behind her. "Only if you're buying."
—
An alarm awoke Kaori. She bolted up in her bed, only to realize it was just the clock. She turned off the alarm, and found a note stuck to the clock. "Kaori, I've set the alarm for you. It might be a bit early, but I thought you might want some time to practice on the slopes before the race tonight. You should have a good hour or so. I left your letter on the desk. Elise." Kaori read out loud.
"I have time to practice now!" Kaori smiled, and made a mental note to thank Elise later. She quickly changed, grabbed her boarding gear, the letter, and left.
On the way down the elevator, she looked over the letter. When would be the best time to tell Mac? "After the race..." She whispered to herself. "I'll do this after the race." She folded the letter carefully in half and put it in her pocket.
She went out into the middle of the main floor and gave the area a quick scan before she left. Maybe there would be a rider left who would want to go on a practice run with her. Seeing no one in particular, she headed for the door. As she did, she passed the café area, and noticed someone. Elise was sitting at a table, laughing. Kaori was about to call out to her, when she noticed that she wasn't alone. Mac was with her. "Ma-chan?" She wondered aloud. Then she saw something that totally caught her off guard. Mac leaned in towards Elise. They were close. Very close. Kaori couldn't see clearly from where she was... but it looked like he kissed her.
—
"So what do you want?" Elise asked, sipping her coffee. "Sorry you had to wait until after the interview, but you know how Atomika gets if we miss these things."
"Um... right. It's ok." He shifted awkwardly in his seat. "I just wanted to uh... ask you a few things."
"I'm listening." Elise said, not exactly paying close attention. She took another sip of her drink.
"Do you think Kaori really likes me?"
"What??" Elise nearly chocked on her drink. "Why are you asking me this?"
"Well... you're her roommate. I thought you would... know for sure."
"Me? Know for sure?" She laughed so loudly, a few people in the café stared. "You're the one who's been dating her for the past few weeks!!"
"Shut up!" He snapped, suddenly taking offense to her joking response.
Elise's laugh simmered down to a chuckle, and then she finally looked him in the eye. "You're... serious about her, aren't you?" He nodded solemnly. "You better treat her right, or-"
"I know! I will!!" He said in another outburst. "She means the world to me!" He quieted down. "Actually... I was planning on doing something today."
"Oh really?" Elise raised an eyebrow, grinning at the thought of Kaori and her letter. "What exactly... were you planning?"
"You can't tell anyone though! If you do... I..." he looked around as if checking for potential eavesdroppers. "I'll have to lay the smack down on you!"
Elise laughed again. "As if that really means anything. But really... what're you doing?"
Looking around again, Mac went in close to Elise and whispered into her ear, "I plan on professing my love to her after the race today."
"Sounds like a brilliant idea." Elise said coyly. "She'll love it." Then, something caught her eye. "Eh? Is that...?"
"Thanks!" Mac seemed to regain his cool. "It's a good idea... cause I thought of it! But... is that what?"
"I think I just saw Kaori. Looked like she was in a hurry to leave..."
"She's probably headed out to the slopes. I'll join her. Thanks Elise!"
—
"No way... this isn't possible." Kaori muttered to herself. "Ma-chan... and Elysia-chan... they wouldn't... it's not... no. They couldn't have. I must've been seeing things..."
"Sorry to interrupt your little conversation with yourself..." The pilot said, as the door to the plane opened. "But we've arrived at your requested destination."
"Oh." She looked out at the snow. In an instant, she lost her will to ride. "Thanks..." She said, jumping out of the plane and onto the fresh snow. She watched the plane fly away, and then pulled the letter out of her pocket.
"Ma-chan..." She dropped the letter onto the snow and pushed off, making her way down the mountain.
—
"Thanks dawg!" Mac yelled back to the pilot as he jumped out of his plane. He took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Ah... nothing like this." He started his run down the course when he noticed some papers lying around in the snow. Curious as to their meaning, he stopped, and picked the all up. Upon further examination, he saw that they were all in Japanese... with drawings... and hearts everywhere. "Eh? Kaori?" He was about to pass these off as just a random thing that Kaori did, since Kaori did do... a lot of random things. But then he noticed something. A drawing of a guy... with a beanie on, that somewhat resembled him. Mac suddenly decided that this was more important than practice.
—
Inside his room, Mac started up his laptop and started surfing the net. Within a few minutes, he found what he was looking for. A Japanese to English translation site. He then flipped through all the pages... everything looked like scribbles to him. He sighed, and picked out the one that looked like the starting page. It had the most blank space on it. Looking through the list of symbols, Mac began translating. "Ma... ma, right... and this means... chan. Ma-chan? This is for me?"
—
Mac barely got to the race in time. "Kaori! I need to talk to you!" He called out to her, but she ignored him. The countdown started, so Mac was forced to give up, for the time being.
The light flashed green, and he flew out. He was hardly first though. Moby took the lead, with Zoe on his tail. Even Griff got ahead of him at the start, but he didn't care. He tailed Kaori until the racers started to spread out. In time, Mac and Kaori were the only ones in sight.
"Kaori, please!!" He yelled, hoping his voice would carry to her. "We need to talk about something!"
"There's nothing to talk about!" She said defiantly, and at the last second, swerved to the left and broke through an 'out-of-bounds' barrier. Of course, it wasn't really out of bounds... might as well say shortcut on it. They both sped up, now in the back country. Trees flew past as Mac desperately tried to keep a visual on Kaori.
"Please!! It's about your letter!" There was a falter in her stance when he said 'letter', and she lost balance, falling to the ground. "Kaori!" Mac immediately stopped and, releasing his footholds, ran to her.
"What letter?" She demanded, as soon as she managed to stand up straight.
"This..." he pulled it out of his pocket. Freeing herself from her binding, Kaori grabbed the letter and ripped it in pieces. "What did you do that for?!" He asked, surprised at her response.
She continued to rip the letter apart, scattering the pieces as they got smaller. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing." She didn't dare look at Mac in the face. She just rebound her feet and continued on. "Just forget it."
"Kaori, wait!" he ran back to his board, but his hands wouldn't seem to get the straps around his feet. He swore loudly to himself as Kaori was lost from his sight. Finally getting it on right, he sped off.
As the back woods blended back into the race course, Kaori was nowhere to be seen. Mac swore again, and then called out for her. No response. Typical. He continued down the track.
—
Mac was nearing the finish line, and still no sight of Kaori. "Where could she be?!" He screamed, angry at himself for letting her go.
Suddenly, he could hear Atomika over the speakers, and the stands were now at his sides. "And it looks like Mac will be taking the gold medal for this race!" The crowds cheered.
"What? I passed her? When?!" The fact that he won the race no longer had meaning to him. He waited for the other racers to come. Zoe took second. Moby came in third. He could see Nate coming around when he was ushered away to be awarded his medal.
"So, Mac!" Atomika's voice boomed over the speakers. "You've won today's race, do you have any words for your fans?"
Mac remained silent, just looking around, still trying to find Kaori. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her by one of the stands. "Kaori!!" His voice echoed throughout the winner's area, and the crowd went silent.
"Uh... Kaori?" Atomika seemed confused.
"Wait, Kaori! I like you! I really do..." Kaori slowly turned, and walked away. "Please... just give me a chance. Listen to me..." He jumped off the stage and ran after her.
—
It only took him 10 minutes to find Kaori, near the outskirts of the back country. She had stopped running away.
"Don't run... please." He begged, in between breaths. "The... letter..."
"Forget the letter!" She screamed. "I shouldn't have written it!"
"But it's true, isn't it? What you said in there?" He slowly took a step towards her.
Kaori scoffed. "How would you know what it said?"
"Trust me. I know." Clearing his throat, Mac began reciting parts of the letter, albeit in broken Japanese he hastily memorized from the website. But he remembered what mattered. How lately, she couldn't stop thinking about him. How, whenever she saw him, it just made her day that much better.
"Stop it, just stop it! Besides... it doesn't matter. You... you and..." She couldn't bring herself to even say it. She began to run again.
"Argh, Kaori, stop! Don't you understand?" He didn't give chase this time. "Aishiteru!"
She stopped running. She half fell, half dropped to the ground, after hearing him. He could see her start to shake, but he didn't know if it was the cold or something else. "Say... say that again."
Mac broke out in a grin. "Uh oh... did I say it wrong?"
"Just say it!"
"...Aishiteru."
She stood up and faced him, tears flowing down her face. "Honto desu ka? Do you really mean it?"
"Hai!" He replied proudly.
She ran to him, and jumped on Mac, who lost his balance, causing both of them to fall down into the snow.
Mac smiled as he opened his eyes, and saw Kaori trying to get up off of him. He wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her down into a hug, ruining her efforts. "I love you..." He whispered.
She giggled, and wiped tears away from her face. "Aishiteru..." She whispered back.
A/N: ah, lovely. reviews are love!! D
Translations: Moshi moshi - hello, Hai - yes, domo - thanks, ano sa - hey, aishiteru - I love you