I am alive.
Late update is...late. My sincerest apologies. Main reasons for lateness: Laziness, stress, school, family issues, friend issues, hurricanes, no power for almost 2 weeks, lack of ideas, writer's block, and Clannad. Clannad is an amazing anime. Watch it. *advertising*
I hope you enjoy this little chapter. It's not very long, but its humorous. If there's any OOCness, I'm sorry.
Four: Game START
To be honest, Misaki had been quite shaken up by her conversation with Sakura and Shizuko a few hours ago. But, now, she forgot about it. And it appeared Sakura and Shizuko did as well. They did trust their best friend, after all.
The small, sweet-smelling, exotic café was bustling with people. Chatter swirled about the air, along with the sweet yet sharp scent of coffee melded with vanilla. It was luscious.
Misaki was lucky she and her friends found a table. It was right next to the window, and the sunlight burnt her skin. It was searing hot outside, way too hot for May. The concrete almost sizzled, and Misaki stared at the citizens walking past.
Coolness and comfortableness fluttered in the air, and the three best friends were delighted to see walking towards their table the waitress, holding a platter with their drinks.
Exasperatedly, the pinkette groaned. "Finally! This café always takes forever!" Her hands splayed on the wooden surface in front of her.
Shizuko's glasses seemed to have brightened, but her stare was still as blank as ever. So was her drawling voice. "The coffee is wonderful, though." The stoic woman never complimented anything. This café must've been good.
"Come to think of it, you've never came here with us, Misaki," Sakura piped, jumping up in slight amusement. "Have you ever come here?"
Misaki paled physically, but her cheeks swelled in a brush of red. "Erm, no…I don't really go out besides work and class…"
Sakura's expression looked as if she would faint any second. Shizuko looked as if she would slam her head on the table repeatedly, and she wouldn't stop until her head bled profusely.
"Really, Misaki-san? Really?" Shaking her head, Shizuko stiffened, covered her forehead with her fingers, and appeared to be mentally cursing.
A vein ticked violently in the pinkette's skull, and Misaki sucked in a deep breath. She felt coffee hitting the pits of her lungs, and psychologically she prepared herself for the onslaught of a scolding from Hanazono Sakura. Shrinking in her seat, the red painted on the ravenhead's cheeks darkened, and she was sweating.
Sakura could be very, very scary, if the feeling so took her.
"Misaki," she started in a deathly slow and low tone, "I thought I told you this before…"
Now Misaki's complexion paled entirely. She held her hands up. "Now, Sakura…"
It was too late. The pinkette exploded.
"I thought you promised you would go out more! I thought you said you'd stop being so serious and lighten up! These are the best years of your life and you'll never get them back! Have fun! Do something! It's unhealthy to be so serious all the time! You always need time to lay back! Come ON!" She was panting, and her arms flew about in the air.
Misaki's locks were flying back from the intensity of her speech. Honestly, she expected it to be worse. "But I-"
She snapped, again. "NO BUTS! You always have excuses! I'm glad you decided to date Hinata-kun, but still! Can't you listen to me now?! I'm saying this for your wellbeing!" Misaki felt like a child being punished by her mother.
"Um, your drinks are here…" The waitress looked squished in the awkward, tense air.
'Thank you!" Sakura's personality flipped a complete one hundred-eighty degrees. She smiled brightly and took an eager sip of her iced coffee, like a giddy little girl.
Misaki's eye twitched, and without saying a word, she brought the rim of her coffee cup to her lips, and let the bitter liquid flow down into her stomach. Sakura was…something different.
Shizuko cleared her throat with a subtle cough. "Ehem, now that Sakura-san's little tantrum is over," her glasses gleamed in malice at the pinkette next to her, "how is your work at the office, Misaki-san?"
Misaki set her coffee back down, and she stared at the air on top of her for a moment. "It's…alright, I guess…" A light pause. "I mean, there are a lot of papers, and it does get boring, but the pay is good. I kind of miss everyone at Maid Latte, though." Her lips twirled into a small, happy yet melancholy smile. A breeze of nostalgia overtook her.
Sakura slurped her straw. "Maybe we should go visit them!"
Misaki considered this for a moment. "Well, I did visit them a few times after I quit, but that's it. It has been a while…"
And then, her cell phone buzzed in her pocket.
With an eyebrow quirking upwards, she slid the small red device out of her pocket and flipped it open. Her mouth almost dropped to the floor.
Curiously, Sakura asked, "Who is it?"
The phone almost shattered in Misaki's shaking, torturing hands.
"…Usui…"
Some kind of expression of shock played in Shizuko's shielded eyes. "Usui-san? Really?" Misaki's head bobbed around in a gesture similar to a nod. "…What did he say…?"
Hesitant in the slightest, her thumb shook and paused for a moment before clicking the 'read' button. What he'd sent her made her want to smash his blonde head into little pieces.
'Misa-chan! It's me! I hope you haven't deleted my number. :D'
Darkness exploded from the air about her. Misaki stood from her seat, and grabbed the metal napkin holder from the table. "Alright, I guess this is the day he dies. Shizuko, arrange his funeral."
This time, Shizuko actually did slam her head on the wooden surface. Sakura bolted upwards quickly.
"Misaki! Relax! And how do you expect to kill him with a napkin holder?! At least take a knife!" Some heads turned around at the pinkette's outburst.
"SAKURA-SAN!" Shizuko shouted, yanking Sakura's arm and willing her to sit back down. Her finger then wiggled at Misaki. "Misaki-san, put the napkin holder down." Her tone was slow, deathly slow, and Misaki knew that this was the time to obey. She set the napkin holder down and settled back into her seat, while Shizuko muttered apologies to surrounding tables.
The ravenhead resisted the urge to slam her phone to the ground. "The audacity! How could he even think to text me?!" The overworked female sighed a long, loud breath, and rested her forehead in her hands.
Shizuko took a sophisticated sip from her tea. "I know you're angry, but maybe he wants to make amends for what he's done."
"Or maybe he'll try to rape her…" Sakura took a long slurp from her straw. Shizuko sent a deadly, deadly glower her way. Sakura almost froze from the iciness.
"Sakura-san, in five seconds, I will punch you…"
"Okay, I'm sorry…" She held her hands up in defense.
"And Misaki-san," she turned back to the heroine, "you know that Usui-san would never try to molest you." Sophisticated auras engulfed her.
"Shizuko, why are you defending him?" Misaki asked softly yet irritated. "You know he-"
She was cut off cleanly. "I'm not defending him. I'm just saying that maybe he's really regretting the fact that he left you. Everyone deserves a second chance. You were very happy with him."
Fierce ambers now softened, and she looked back at her phone. She was angry at him. Furious, maybe. Did he deserve a second chance? Perhaps Shizuko was right. Misaki wasn't the person she had been once. She wasn't Seika's student council president anymore. She'd matured. And hopefully he did as well.
She had loved him, once. It wouldn't kill her to forgive him.
Briefly, she wondered if she'd fall in love with him again. Then, she mentally smacked herself for thinking such a ludicrous thought.
"I'll try to give him another chance."
Never did she realize that maybe, just maybe, she'd been in love with him all along. Maybe she'd never stopped loving him.
Misaki had told Shizuko that she would at least try to give Takumi another chance. She didn't discern or expect the fact that it would be so damn difficult.
The ravenhead sat at her desk at home. Paperwork needed to be finished. It was almost eight in the evening. She was trying to get done as much as she could, but the constant lighting up of her phone was distracting her, nonetheless irritating her to no end. At this point, she was ready to either grab a baseball bat and decimate her phone to pieces, or get a knife (like Sakura had suggested) and go to his apartment. Looking at his perverted alien ways, he'd either find a way to contact her besides her cell phone, or rise from the dead somehow. Maybe his alien brethren would come and chant some kind of magic spell to make him alive again.
Misaki rested her head on the desk in exasperation. Her attention span had gotten weaker over the years, she assumed.
Usui Takumi kept sending her message after message; there seemed to be no end to the torture. She'd never replied to even one. She'd thought if she replied, the messages would stop. But then she'd heard that completely and utterly annoying buzzing and deciphered that she'd need to come up with a way to kill him.
It wasn't only the constant buzzing and lighting up. It was the actual words written in the messages that made her think like a demon. She never knew his stupidity (or alien-ness) could reach such absurd levels.
'Misa-chaaan!'
'Answer meee!'
'Don't you miss me?!'
'It's not nice to leave a guy hanging like this! *pout*'
'I bet you're getting so angry right now.'
(That one actually made her walk to her kitchen and slip out a butcher knife.)
'I hope your cute face is as cute as it was in high school. *smiley face*'
(She had shaken her head at this one. Shameless flirting. Some people's idiocy never lowered.)
'Ayuzawaaa!'
Total number of bizarre, ridiculous, idiotic, insane, completely-irritating and perversely-alien messages: 52. In the midst of only seven hours. Wonderful.
"Shizuko told me I couldn't kill him…" She sighed in defeat. Uselessly, she decided she should at least attempt to get some work done. She never liked to leave things to the last minute.
The red device buzzed again, sending vibrations to her arm. Grunting violently, she grasped the device and flipped it open.
This message didn't cause her to scream in anger. This one resulted in her eyes slightly wide, with her lips parted in slight bewilderedness.
'I've been in England for four years and you won't even hear me out?'
Her face fell, eyes sparkling in something keen to disappointment. Bitterness erupted from that message, and she felt it sink into her veins and seep into her heart.
She set the phone down on the corner of the wooden surface. She didn't reply. She wouldn't reply. What could she possibly say?
She lowered her chin and her eyelashes fluttered shut.
Four hours later…
Her cheek stuck to the papers on her desk. It hit midnight, and in the end, she couldn't get anything done. She willed her eyes to stop drooping and open.
He annoyed her to no end. And in conclusion, she couldn't ignore him.
His most recent message seemed as if he was an entirely different person.
'Ayuzawa, I know you don't want to talk to me, and I understand that. But would it kill you to reply, even once?'
It was completely true; she didn't want to talk to him. She didn't want to think of him. She didn't want to recall him kissing her fiercely in the utility closet at his welcoming party. She didn't want to relive how she felt when all contact from him was cut off.
Strangely, in some weird, empty way, the hate she had felt for him was dwindling day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.
Her mood was unbelievably sour now. Her lips were in a small, callous frown, and her eyes were sick of looking at her cell phone.
Another buzz.
'I'm sorry. For everything.'
This made her head shoot upright. She read the four words over and over again, and they almost popped out of the screen.
He was sorry. It was just a text message, but somehow, in some weird way, weight was lifted off her shoulders. Uncertainty and bitterness disintegrated from within her core and just disappeared, like a breath of fresh air. There wasn't an acrid taste lingering on her tongue anymore.
Years ago, she'd promised herself that if he ever apologized, she'd never forgive him. Her stubbornness vanished as well, it appeared.
But years ago, she'd known very well in her heart that she wanted so very badly to hear him say sorry, to hear any word of apology come from his mouth. He typed it in a message, but it still meant something. This was something. She wanted his apology, and she'd gotten it. She now realized that she had forgiven him a long, long time ago; she just didn't know it at the time.
Her fingers hovered over the buttons on her phone. She was still brooding. She still didn't know what to write.
Before she got the chance to type, another message came.
'If possible, tomorrow, can you meet me in Central Park at noon? I want to talk to you face to face. You don't have to come if you don't want to.'
Flipping her phone shut, she set it down on her desk and trudged to her bedroom.
She'd only learned two things from that…strange…experience.
Never underestimate the persistency of a perverted outer-space alien.
And always listen to Shizuko.
No Usui physically in this chapter, but he was there in spirit. His hot self will make an appearance next chapter. I wonder if this was actually funny...
On a completely different note, is anyone here a Last Game fan? Awesome manga. I adored the newest chapter. I actually got the game idea for this fic from this manga...
HUGE bear hug to everyone who reviewed. Thank you Ariella, MikazukiDreams, Magica Ring, Razielle, Pervert outerspace alien lover, Jabobi, Honoko-chan, G27forever, Guests, ValidaLionheart, redflower789, PsychadelicRose, Shark's Fin, and Neko-chan2604 for your wonderfulness!
I'll give you cookies if you review. :D