Covered in rain
CHAPTER SEVEN
Her face was never as sunnier as it was now.
Botan walked cheerily towards her students, her mood instantly zipping them to their full attention to her. "Ohayou!" she greeted them and they did the same. "You must be wondering why we are here, ne"
"Hai, sensei." One of her students piped. "Shouldn't we be in the classroom"
Kimiko nodded in agreement. "Won't our parents get mad if they find we are not in school"
"But they wouldn't know!" another argued. "Right, sensei"
"Hai!" she chirped, crouching down so she had a better view of them. "This is our little secret." She made a shushing gesture, which made the children "ooh," in agreement. She giggled. "Who remembers Santa's personal assistant"
"Ooh, ooh!" said Ayumi, jumping up and down, eager to tell what she knew. "He's your friend, right? Koenma"
"Yes, yes!" Botan nodded. "He's here"
"Ooh," the group chorused. "What's he doing here?"
"He came to sweep someone off her feet."
Koenma suddenly appeared from where he was hiding—behind the cherry tree—and silently walked towards Botan. The woman stood to her full height and turned 90 degrees to meet him. He smiled. She smiled.
It was something out of a dream; them standing together a good two feet away from each other. He looked at her with such a stare that only a man in deep fascination with something---someone---could possibly do. She looked at him, her happiness personified. They say that words could never grasp a thousand emotions and yes, they were right. No words could ever put into flow what had transpired between them; only silence would. Only their eyes would.
"Hello, Koenma-kun." She said in a whisper.
He bent towards her to deliver a soft peck to her cheeks, intense but chaste. "Fair day to you."
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and averted her eyes away from his. "I'm glad you're here." she said, trying to loosen up the situation. If only there was room to melt…she murmured in her thoughts watching him sidestep her to greet the children. He was very accommodating to them, and Botan sincerely appreciated his affection towards them. Not too many people bothered with the little ones, for pure reason that they were the business of women not of men. She has met men who paid children a care because of their wanting to be noticed by their conquest, but Koenma had no air of pretense about him. He was naturally one with them, and this made Botan's heart break with a positive pink-tinted ache.
They were talking about muffins now.
"I love muffins," pronounced Hidetoshi, puffing up his chest. "They are very squishy"
Koenma had a hard time suppressing the disbelieving tone of his voice. "SQUISHY?" "Yes," he said. "Squishy"
"I would love to have a taste of that muffin, Hidetoshi-kun"
"Mmm-hmm. Botan-chan always makes them in the afternoon." Koenma laughed. "Oh. I see. I had those. They are pretty squishy."
Koenma and Hidetoshi's conversation lagged on until it was time for the children to go home. They both said goodbye to them, but it was Koenma who ushered them towards the path that led back to the school. He was back a quarter of an hour later.
He found her under the shade of the cherry tree, reading a somewhat weather beaten book. He settled beside her. "Hello," she greeted. "How are the children"
"Very energetic. The girls are still going about how they would never remove the daisy chain in their hair"
She giggled and tucked the stray hair that flirted with the wind. "They are so adorable"
Koenma smiled and nodded his head. "Ne, what are you reading"
She held up the book. "Just those fairytales you used to hear when you're small. I used to read it when I was small"
"I see"
A bitter smile crept unto her features. "I always thought there was an ever after."
He looked at her with an unfathomable gaze. He wanted to tell her of his intentions; that he was ready to accommodate her world into his and that he loved her—yes, he loved her.
No she was no longer the inspiration of that drop of cheeriness in him, she was no longer the friend he had lengthy conversations with each day, she was no longer a visit that offered relief, and she was no longer the shadow of his mother's past but the woman he had learned to admire and love.
And those pieces fell so suddenly into place that he dismissed it casually as a flick of his perturbed thoughts and distractions. But that indifference ebbed away at the mere affection she gave him; the peace she offered for his raging anger over the past he had no time to correct.
"There is," he answered in measured tones looking at her watch the horizon, which was slowly turning to darkness and being spotted with stars. "Turn around"
And she did and she found him, his eyes full of truths that she already knew what he was about to say before he opened his mouth and did so. "I love you, Botan-chan"
A smile contradicted the crystal streaks fell from her eyes. Koenma's hand was outstretched towards her and she took it in an embrace as she whispered exactly all the things she had been waiting to tell him. That all that she ever wanted to gain back she had found in him, how he had become the source of every possibility that happened and will happen in her life and that yes—she finally found her ever after.
