Another drabble challenge from Smoke and Mirrors. Ravyn gave the challenge to Scribbles, but since I was desperate more more drabble ideas, I decided to see what I could do. The goal was 500 words, using clock and fingertips. I ended up with almost 700.

The previous drabble challenge I wrote ended up longer than anticipated. I posted it as a stand alone oneshot, 'Sexy Secrets'. Check it out if you're interested in Valentine's Day pieces.

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Waiting

Misao drummed her fingertips on the desk, frowning. Where was he? She shifted in her chair, then adjusted her skirt. Patting her head she checked her hair one more time.

She sighed.

Shoving hard against the desk, she sent her self spinning cross the tiny office. The chair may be old and the seat cracked, but at least the wheels seemed to work. She pushed off the wall, veering to the side. Well, most of the wheels worked, but one of them stuck enough to keep from making it a smooth ride. She twirled around some, then, with a burst of energy, spun as fast as she could.

As the chair wound to a stop, Misao scooted back over to the desk and rested her now dizzy head. She was bored. Very bored. Damn that man, where was he? She looked at the clock again only to remember that it was broken. It still ticked annoyingly, but the second hand never seemed to work its way past the 7, before falling back to the 5 to try again.

Old and broken, like most of the stuff in the room. The heavy metal desk likely predated the Second World War, if not the first. Still functioned well, if you ignored the missing drawer. The lopsided bookcase was half filled with obscure and boring books, at least in Misao's opinion. Sure, Aoshi was a mathematics graduate student, but couldn't he have something more interesting than Calculus on Manifolds?

Misao eyed the clunky black phone sitting on the desk. There was an arcane ritual that had to be performed to make that thing work, something with a '9' for outgoing calls, plus a billing number, plus a destination prefix…. Aoshi had explained it once, but she hadn't paid much attention, preferring to depend on her cell phone. Of course since he absconded with her purse which had her cell phone, that was no longer an option.

He had made her promise, promise, not the leave his office. And not just any sort of promise, one of those 'look her in the eyes and soberly ask her to do this for him' kind of promises. He had been extremely serious, even for Aoshi. And so she had agreed. And she was going to keep her word, dammit. But what was taking so long?

She drummed her fingertips some more and eyed the ancient computer in the corner. She had turned it on a while ago and it seemed to take ages to load, all the while making laboring noises. Misao had no clue how old it was, it looked like something she had used in middle school. It didn't even run Windows. She had played a game on it once while waiting for Aoshi to finish up his work. It was called 'Nethack' or something like that. The game had been mildly amusing, even if it took the computer forever to respond to the different commands. However, given her lack of login and password information, it didn't look like she'd get to distract herself with it again.

Misao sighed, then straightened as she heard the door open. She jumped up and ran over to Aoshi as he entered.

"Where have you been? What's going on? What took so long?" she said, tugging at his sleeve.

The barest hit of a smile quirked on Aoshi's lips. "Come" he said.

"Where are we going? Why did I have to wait?" Misao continued questioning him, as they walked down the hall.

Aoshi shook his head. "Soon."

He opened the door which lead out to a small courtyard. There a blanket was spread out on a table. On one corner sat a bottle of wine, another held a picnic basket. And in the center lay a single rose and an open jewelry box. A diamond ring shone.

Misao gasped.

"For you," said Aoshi looking slightly tense, "if you will have me."

"Yes!" shouted Misao, hugging him, kissing him, spinning them around. "Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!"

A true smile played over his face. "Thank you" he whispered, hugging her tightly.

Misao smiled and kissed him. The wait hadn't been as long as she'd thought.