Hearts and Scribbles
[Three]
.
Love is not all: It is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain,
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
and rise and sink and rise and sink again.
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
pinned down by need and moaning for release
or nagged by want past resolutions power,
I might be driven to sell you love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It may well be. I do not think I would. – Edna St. Vincent Millay
-/-
Iroha was never quite proficient at crocheting; not even close. She could sew fairly well, but that was the extent of her needlework. So her work was horrendous, up to the point that her mother, Ia, took one look at Iroha's pitiful, knotted piece of lacy cloth, and decided to sit down and help the girl. Iroha sewed the lace onto a white cloth cutout, with the pink letters carefully embroidered on it:
I owe you an apology…
Iroha bit her lip in concentration as she picked off the thread that made up the last period in the ellipse. Then she set the cutout aside and began on another one.
…but, misunderstandings aside, I hope we can still be friends.
-/-
Iroha had to get to Bokaroido High at directly 8:00 in the morning, for the last carnation sale took place from that time to eight-twenty-five, where sales stopped and the Student Council members would clean up and hurry with it, for class began at eight-thirty. So Iroha couldn't meet SeeU at the fork anyway.
She was biting her lip and fingering her cutout—she had sewed the two cutouts together, back-to-back—as she locked her bicycle and headed onto the area where the carnations would be selling. The carnations cost seventy-five cents today, as most of them were at their wilting stage and it was already Valentine's Day. There might be some last-minute buyers; who knew?
Iroha wasn't sure if SeeU would come up to her and talk to her as if nothing had happened, or if SeeU would act hurt, or if SeeU would ignore her altogether.
Ample time for getting mad, Iroha thought sarcastically. Iroha had added a little card to the Valentine, reading,
"Happy Valentine's Day!"
even though she didn't quite feel like saying it out loud. Then, quickly terminating her thoughts, she pasted a smile on her face as some random senior came by, breathless, shoving a handful of money in her face and telling her that he wanted one of those pink carnations.
"That'd be seventy-five cents, sir," Iroha said, picking the best pink carnation she could find and presenting it to him.
The senior grumbled about it, but counted out three quarters and left with the pink carnation.
Just like that, Iroha sat through a full stretch of twenty-five minutes. It was almost a relief to her when her watch beeped, and she got up to pack up. Luo Tianyi nodded pointedly at her when she passed by, and Miki smiled at Iroha, sympathy still apparent in her eyes.
Iroha didn't want Miki's pity—Miki somehow knew everything around here, even if Tianyi hadn't told her. But at the moment, she didn't mind… or didn't care. Class would start in five minutes, and Iroha would die if she didn't get to Miss Sakine's homeroom-class-thingy on time. Meiko was known to be scary to the latecomers.
And so she found herself sitting in her seat. In homeroom, Iroha was in front of SeeU, so she didn't have to look back and see SeeU. And she didn't. Iroha had to admit, she was ashamed to feel that way, but her pride was unbending.
Pride was a fickle thing, it was.
-/-
The day slipped by quickly and quietly. In art class, which they happened to have that day, there was a small celebration instead of a new art assignment. Of course, nobody brought Valentines for each other, so the party didn't last very long as the students scarfed down their cookies and drank the juice. But other than that, that was the only difference that set out Valentine's Day from the rest.
After a Student Council meeting after school, which really was not very long now that the sales were finished, Iroha walked out to the bicycle racks.
Her heart began to drum and leap in her chest again. There hadn't been a lot of days when SeeU didn't wait for her, certainly not over a petty squabble. Still… things were changing. They were getting older. Iroha's words probably hurt SeeU.
And then Iroha was thinking, and not noticing the things around her, until she—
"SeeU? Why are you here?"
The words came out of Iroha's mouth faster than she could stop them. Why oh why oh why must I always push an argument further than it already—
"I didn't mean that!" Iroha suddenly shouted.
"Er, yeah," SeeU said.
What was that supposed to mean?
"Anyway…" Why was this so hard? Iroha fumbled about in her pockets, and her bag, while SeeU looked on. Scratch that. SeeU was busy putting things into her backpack. Finally Iroha's fingers brushed the heart that she made for SeeU. Iroha held it behind herself, and the moments that passed were silent, and so awkward, that Iroha wished either she or SeeU could actually say something to break the lull in the conversation.
"Yeah?" SeeU finally said.
"So um like"—Iroha whipped out the lacy heart—"can we… make up?" she added more softly.
SeeU's immediate reaction was, "Iroha! That must have taken forever to make!"
"My mom helped with the crocheting of the lace, but I sewed the rest," Iroha admitted.
"And here I'm feeling bad about my Valentine…" continued SeeU.
"What?" Iroha cried.
"What?" SeeU echoed.
"You—have a Valentine for me?"
"…This is starting to sound clichéd, but… of course… Did you think I'd forget it?" SeeU grinned.
Iroha gaped down at the white carnation that SeeU handed to her. "But—I was there the entire time—you didn't—"
"I know. Miki gave me it for free yesterday. She said that you were acting a little odd, and it was something about a wrecked friendship, and so she hoped the carnation would make us both feel better. Also, Tianyi came along and said that I should really talk to you, and that you would probably apologize, so…" And then SeeU frowned. "I have my own Valentine for you, except I left it at home."
"Oh—that's okay," Iroha said mildly. After apologizing SeeU, a huge weight seemed to have floated away with the breeze. Who knew that Miki and Tianyi could be useful in friendships when neither were the best company? "Yeah. Uh… are you going to take it?"
SeeU accepted the Valentine, and folded it carefully, sliding it into her coat pocket. Then she suggested, "Race you?"
"To the fork in the road." Iroha grinned. "I won't lose this time."
*A/N: And so this brings the story to a conclusion. I debated with myself over the ending and its style for quite a long time, but I managed to agree with myself... I'm still not particularly happy about it, but I'm coming along. So... Thanks to all that favorited, followed, and/or reviewed! :)
~ Unyielding Wish