Our Impending Affiliation
"I'm sorry. I can't keep this up, not now. . ." Amber eyes drooped as those words left his lips. Kaoru felt like it should be cold and raining, he felt like the earth should be miserable, for he was miserable. It wasn't though. It was early spring, and the weather was quite pleasant, even for so late in the day.
"So we're breaking up then?"
"I'm afraid so. . . I'm sorry."
"Is it someone else? Is it your brother?"
". . . Yes. It isn't what you think though." Kaoru murmured and his voice was nearly lost against the busy foot traffic of the evening. He huddled into his hoodie despite the warm weather. The Hitachiin wanted to be small, to have something to hide behind from these horrible words he was saying.
"I know."
"It's just that Haruhi will pick Tono soon! Hikaru will need me, he'll be devastated." The younger brother rushed, his voice trembling just slightly. "I need to be there for him. If I'm in a relationship-"
"Kaoru, I understand." What a pretty smile. What a knowing smile, sad though. This was killing the boy.
"I'm so sorry Mei!" Kaoru whispered but the girl shook her head. He sighed and quieted himself; this was so not what he had planned. He liked this girl. He really liked this girl. He never expected he would like her this much however. They had been pushed together when Hikaru was so busy trying to win Haruhi's affections and well, neither Kaoru nor Mei were all that idle by nature.
And here he was with the first girl he had ever really dated, breaking up with her. It had taken five dates before Mei finally demanded he either ask her out officially or stop stringing her along. His brother had better know how much he loved him. "Besides, we've been thinking of studying abroad and that would really mess things up for us. I don't think a Japan-America relationship would work out to well. I mean, I could fly back most weekends, but that's a lot of stress and-"
"You're going to America?"
Kaoru registered his newly ex-girlfriend's words a bit after she screamed them at him. It was when she had started to shake him that he realized he was rambling. "Um, maybe. We haven't decided. I want to go to Paris, or Milan, but Hikaru isn't going to major in fashion. We want to study together, and I have my time during University to do more intense study on my major." The red head dryly replied while letting his shoulders rise and fall in a rather bored manner.
"Kaoru, you have to send me magazines, and keep me up to date on the trends! Where will you go, New York? Will you be going to any shows?" Mei was full of questions Kaoru didn't have answers for.
Laughing as he placed his hands on her shoulders the red head smiled. "I don't know yet, nothing's final. Don't worry Mei, I'll keep you up to date. Which reminds me, have you finished your portfolio? 'Cause I was thinkin' you should get me three more designs, and a couple of prototypes would be nice too."
"Kaoru, quit changing your mind!" Mei barked, for this was the third time the Hitachiin had ordered her to do more work. Material wasn't cheap, how many prototypes did he want? She wouldn't admit it until later, but she was very happy he pushed her in these ways.
"I just want it to be the best it can be. That's-" He paused as his phone started to ring and sighed a bit when he saw who was calling. "Sorry, I need to get going. . ."
"So this is it?"
"Yeah. . ."
They stood there for a while in awkward silence. Something needed to be said, had to be said, but they didn't know what so Kaoru turned to go with a bad feeling in his gut. He got maybe two paces when he felt a hand holding onto his arm, silently begging him not to leave it like this.
Realizing what she did Mei blushed and let her hand drop. "You can look me up when you get everything settled. I'll probably have a new boyfriend though, and he- mph!" She was angry at him for cutting her off in such a way, but she settled with sighing contently at their first kiss. Even if they weren't a couple anymore.
"Your new boyfriend will have to deal with it."
