Moments in Time
Act One, Scene Three
pas·sage1 Spelled [pas-ij] noun, verb,-saged, -sag·ing.
noun: A lapse or passing, as of time. or A progress or course, as of events. It grows exponentially.
Kuga Natsuki was glad that she'd taken the charm off of her cell phone when she started to dial Shizuru's number, the wind was picking up and the small metal chain with 'good luck' spelled in stylized kanji that Mai had given her after winning it at a festival the previous year rattling against the plastic backing of her phone would be incredibly distracting. To this day, Natsuki was not quite sure what had possessed her to smile and nod at Mai's friendly gift and then surrender her phone to Mai so that the red head could attach the gift.
She reasoned that it was probably a sense of obligation and also gratitude. Shizuru had been her only friend up until that point in time and it was oddly nice to have more than one person smile at her in a caring way. She was a sentimental fool, and Natsuki knew it. Still, she genuinely liked Mai and was eternally grateful for what she had done during the carnival. Nagi had taken a liking to her, which had worked in Natsuki's favor in terms of so many of her actions over the past months – she'd gotten the answers that she'd accepted the HiME power in order to find.
She still wasn't sure that she liked the answers.
She dialed Shizuru's number from memory – she had never programed it into the phone for fear of it being found on her person by First District. Thinking about that childish fear now was enough to bring a sick and twisted smile to Natsuki's fate as she thought about how those bastards had perhaps finally gotten their due. And at the hands of the one person that Natsuki had been so desperate to protect them from, the situation was almost perfect.
A frown pulled across her face, dragging her smile downward almost as soon as that thought path had completed.
She was acting like Shizuru again. Never had she dreamed of such a result to her single-minded quest to destroy the organization that had destroyed her life; and Shizuru had managed to do just that in a heartbeat. Those people had not deserved to die in the way that they had - no one deserved to be sacrificed at that blade. Natsuki had tried to prevent as many deaths as possible. She'd tried so hard - but she had not been able to come out of her own head and her own fears to stop Shizuru then.
The phone rang, the tone echoing in Natsuki's ear as she pressed the receiver into her ear to make sure she didn't miss Shizuru picking up. The pressure felt welcome, and the pinch of cartilage between bone and hard plastic reminded her that she was indeed alive. The pulsating tone of the ringer was enough to confirm, yet again, that she still felt nothing but annoyance for the majority of humanity.
The pause was so drawn out that she almost hoped that Shizuru wouldn't pick up. She was afraid of what she might say.
They were dancing around too many things right now. One misstep and they would never again be able to return to the way that things were before. Natsuki feared losing that innocent friendship more than anything else in the entire world – and as she had watched it crumble with Shizuru's mind during the battle, Natsuki had felt the child-like contentment in that friendship vanish before her eyes. She had no idea what she would do if she could never talk to Shizuru as she had before she'd found out that her best friend was a HiME.
Before she had found out that her best friend was in love with her. Real, passionate love, the kind they only talk about in fairy tales.
She didn't want to think of the consequences for her actions during that battle.
She didn't want to think about what that kiss had meant.
"Hello?" Shizuru's voice was soft and distant, but it brightened the dark frown that had fallen across Natsuki's face upon thought of First District and the flush of the memory of that kiss. There was something comforting and friendly about her accented voice, even if it sounded as distant and empty as it had during the carnival over the phone. Shizuru was not a big fan of phones, something that irritated Natsuki to no end throughout the course of their friendship, as she did not like having to carry around something that was known for making shrill beeping noises.
Natsuki had called her foolish for not liking them back then, and Shizuru had told her that it was far more reasonable and enjoyable for her if Natsuki just dropped by without warning. Now seeing the further implication of Shizuru's words, Natsuki thought herself a fool.
Natsuki jerked her head to the side, trying to tear the image of those dead, dead eyes out of her head. "Shizuru?" She started, cupping her hand around the mouthpiece of her phone so that it would not be drowned out by the brisk wind. "I'm on my way back now - I should be there in around thirty minutes." There was no sense beating around the bush. They would talk when she got back.
And shit, it would be hard as hell to say what she needed to say.
Natsuki swallowed, a lump in her throat had suddenly appeared when she thought about what they were going to have to talk about. It might even be better to do it over the phone, as she was so afraid of what was going to happen if they were together in person.
I'm a fucking coward.
Shizuru's voice had a slight smile in it - it always did. Natsuki wondered what she was doing that was causing that smile now; probably just existing, but if she was making an idiot of herself again... "Good, I made us some food."
Food. While the gesture was nice, she wasn't sure that she could handle eating right now - let alone talking. Driving the bike was tiring enough as it was – despite the freedom that it offered – and driving for this long had been pushing limits that Natsuki was not even aware she still possessed. Getting home was another story and she knew that it would take a herculean effort to make it back alive.
All she wanted was to sleep - to escape into that dream world that she had faded into so easily before all this had started. A world filled with no complications and simple the dreams that she wished for a better future. Sometimes, Natsuki did not like that dream world – as it was too bizarrely innocent and utopian for her tastes. Shizuru was not crazy there, however, and she was not obsessively and terrifyingly in love with her there either.
Natsuki knew that being honest was her best bet in such a situation. Shizuru would talk her into eating anyway, because that was what she did though subtle concern and insistent comments that made Natsuki feel as though she was somehow in the wrong in refusing. It was a stupid game, but Natsuki played it because she knew better than to not – Shizuru liked games like that because it was a subtle measure of how close they were as individuals. Shizuru would talk her into eating anyway. It was just the way that they worked together, Natsuki would playfully refuse and Shizuru would insist upon something in the name of Natsuki's poor health. "Shizuru I'm too tired to eat." She shifted her weight on the back of her bike - trying to find an angle where wind would not drown out her voice as she tried to talk to Shizuru.
It was annoying, frankly.
"I can put it in the refrigerator if you want." There was something in Shizuru's voice that Natsuki couldn't place - it sounded almost hurt. She'd been hearing a lot of that recently, the hurt and the anguish that came with the carnival was something that would probably never leave Natsuki's mind – and the pain in Shizuru's eyes as she flinched away from that oh so friendly and welcoming touch…
Natsuki had never been able to really read into Shizuru's moods, and right now she could care less about them. This was a round-about conversation and one that she did not have the mental facilities for at the moment. She felt as though she was slogging through molasses just talking to Shizuru, and she knew that as soon as she got off the phone it was going to get far worse.
She was simply tired and by all rights, Shizuru should have been too.
They'd been through so much, and sleeping was getting to the point where it was an inevitable conclusion.
"Let's just play it by ear." She said, smiling slightly as she raised a hand to prevent her hair from blowing erratically across her face. This wind was really getting on her already frayed nerves. "Okay?"
Shizuru's voice took on a teasing tone that Natsuki recognized and yet could not defend against despite years of dealing with it. "I put mayonnaise on it." The tone was innocent, as though Shizuru was commenting on the weather and not Natsuki's culinary weakness.
Damnit, woman, you know me too well. Natsuki bit her tongue to keep the retort from escaping her lips. She knew that at this point, protest was a moot point. Shizuru had keyed her way into the one weakness that Natsuki conceivably had when it came to food and had made that weakness an offer it could not refuse.
"I..." Natsuki began, searching for the right words, "well I suppose I could eat."
Fuck, I sound like an idiot.
Shizuru had made her food, and in order to do that had probably had to go shopping - not to mention the fact that Nao had raided her kitchen and probably completely depleted Natsuki's already rather limited food supplies. Cooking took time; the kitchen had been trashed, as had the rest of the apartment.
What Shizuru would have had to have done in order to make the apartment habitable was mind-boggling to Natsuki. She must have worked fast.
I don't believe this - I have done nothing to deserve this.
They were not dating, and it was almost as though Shizuru presumed that this was still something that they could both mentally handle. She wasn't sure that they could, honestly.
"I'll be waiting." Shizuru said her tone businesslike once more. This was the voice that left no room for negotiation, and the one that Natsuki knew better than to refuse. Shizuru was usually correct in her assumptions about Natsuki's health, despite the fact that Natsuki would never admit it openly.
"Right..." She trailed off, but Shizuru had already hung up the phone. This brought ire to Natsuki's completive stare as she looked down the busy city street. She could just barely make out the bay in the distance. She would have to drive through that devastation and destruction again on her way home, and Shizuru was obviously expecting her sooner rather than later.
I can't dawdle.
She felt like an ill-behaved child, breaking the rules just for the sake of doing just that. Shizuru was going to be upset that she'd reached out to Nao, but she would have to understand that Natsuki wanted nothing to do with Shizuru's perceived rivalry between the two of them. Nao was what Natsuki would have become without Shizuru's... positive - yes, it was positive for the most part - influence. She just wanted Nao to have a friend - which was a chance at something that she'd never been given the gift of having before.
Natsuki snapped her phone shut and turned her attention back to the motorcycle between her legs. She was balancing it, bracing with one foot as the other prepared to push off and kick the bike back into motion. Yet she was hesitating, afraid of what she was going to encounter as she headed back home.
When driving through Fuuka, the path had been free and clear of people, but she knew the way that First District worked. The chances that they would be mobile, moving through the streets like flies - cleaning up the carnage that was left behind from the game that they had striven to create.
Fucking bullshit.
Natsuki jammed her phone back into her pants pocket and pulled her helmet back on. The silent world inside of the insulated space brought a ringing to her ears and Kuga Natsuki found herself speeding off into the growing dusk wondering why exactly returning home was almost as terrifying a prospect as refraining from doing so.
Thank you for your kind reviews and words of encouragement.
