Firm Shove in the Right Direction
It echoed hollowly in his mind, over and over, like a broken record. It pestered him, tortured him, ridiculed him, making him hear it in his head over and over again.
"I've been stationed in a small, remote country in the mainland," Tsubaki had said with a tone as sullen as he felt, her eyes averted to the ground and her form shaking barely discernibly. "I am to leave for the position tomorrow because my assistance there is of utmost importance and the matter is very urgent."
He stared at her vacuously, as if expecting there to be a continuation to this nightmare but when she remained silent for a long time after saying this, he found the chance to pull himself together a plaster a (painfully fake) smile on his face.
"Ohh, you've been a Death Scythe for such a short time and you already get your first important mission? I'm so proud of you, Tsubaki!"
The grin he gave her made her heart contort in her chest but she attempted to reciprocate the expression, though she was sure it probably came out as more of a grimace than anything else.
"I'll… do my best!" she promised but it didn't take a genius to figure out her heart wasn't really in it.
A whole different conversation took place between them at the same time, and it did so without a need for any words or actions.
I don't want to be separated; I don't want to go, Tsubaki shouted soundlessly, her spirit writhing in anguish inside the confines of her body.
Please don't leave, he begged without a word or a breath, his face still twisted in that weird, untruthful smile.
But they couldn't say any of that out loud.
Because she had responsibilities not only to him now that she was a Death Scythe. She was not only his partner, but also Shinigami-sama's direct underling. So when there was something she was ordered to do, she was offered no choice but to do it.
She did not wish to leave but it was not a matter that could be contended with.
She would do as she was told and go to the mainland to sort out God knows what mess for God knows how long a time.
And she'd have to somehow do it alone, without the pillar of strength that her partner had always been to her.
They were still in the same room but the distance between them had already begun to grow relentlessly.
They were still together in the same premise yet they felt lonelier than they ever had before.
The very first thing he did the next day was to go inquire Shinigami-sama about this outrage.
"Why must you send Tsubaki to deal with the mainland's problems? Isn't there anyone closer to the source of trouble to deal with it?" Black Star's brow was furrowed and his face was set in a stern expression that emanated his discontent if his words failed to convey his feelings on the matter at hand he'd come to discuss with his superior.
Shinigami-sama cocked his head to the side as he regarded his pupil.
"It is imperative that she goes, because she's the only one with that kind of ability. There's no one else who can manage it."
Black Star had tried to reason with the Grim Reaper for a while afterwards but to no avail. The man had been steadfast in his claim that he could have no one other than Tsubaki to deal with this matter the origins of which he would also not disclose. When he saw that he was getting nowhere with that argument, the assassin ruffled his hair in his vexation and left Shibusen's founder to his own devices. Black Star knew a lost cause when he saw one.
That day, after classes in Shibusen were over, the blue-haired youth came home to an empty apartment for the first time in many, many years.
Tsubaki had left early morning on the day after receiving her orders.
She had used Black Star's absence to take her leave. When he came back after his argument with Shinigami-sama that day, Black Star found that most of her necessary belongings were gone and that there was a note on the living-room table.
'I'm so sorry for taking off in such a sneaky manner, but I'm really bad with good-byes. That, and… I really don't know how I'm supposed to say good-bye to you, so I chose just to leave you this note instead. I took only a few necessities with me because I didn't want to carry too much things.
Please don't forget to eat well and take care of yourself while I'm gone. I'll try to write or call as soon as I get a grasp of the situation over there.
Tsubaki.'
He read the note written in her beautifully neat hand-writing. He read it again, and then again, until he was just staring at the sheet of paper, as though holding onto a precious memento of some sort.
He was thought a fool by many of his peers but his few closest people knew he was anything but stupid. He could read the thoughts and intentions of his dearest friends that they didn't mean to make known, didn't want to convey in a direct manner.
And in the short letter left behind by his closest person, he read between the lines; 'I didn't want to take too many of my things with me because I didn't want to make the finality of my moving out too evident.'
That had been the first evening he came back to an empty place, void of any cheer and homely feel.
The days following it were equally as dreary and passed by just as uneventfully and boringly as the first.
To make the wait for a call or a word from his partner—he stubbornly refused to let go of that notion, no matter how much distance separated them—more bearable, Black Star threw himself whole-heartedly into his work and his training, exerting all of the excess energy that pent up inside him because of his annoyance with this situation.
He pushed and shoved himself onward until he could barely breathe at the end of the day, filling his schedule with so much exercise for both his mind and body that he would have no time to ponder anything.
He didn't want to consider how much a constant in his life Tsubaki had become, to the point that he'd taken her presence for granted. He didn't want to think about how he'd always (naively) believed she'd be by his side forever, so he never rushed to saying the things that really mattered. Because she would always be there and he could wait for the perfect opportunity to say what he had to say—until then he could concentrate on the things that were beyond his reach, and work towards achieving them.
He had never thought that a time would come that she wouldn't be just an arm's length away, no longer at his side with her lovely amicable smile and kind word of encouragement.
He had never hurried himself into saying the things he really thought—about her, about their partnership, about what it all meant to him—and now it was too late.
He couldn't drive away the obtrusive thoughts in the hours and hours of silence that fell upon him each night that he tossed and turned in bed, trying to catch some of that elusive sleep.
And in those moments, when he was home and the only noise came from the TV or a game he busied himself with, he couldn't help but wonder;
Had this place always been so huge?
On the sixth day of Tsubaki's departure Black Star just stood up in the middle of a lesson in Shibusen and waltzed right out of the room without uttering a word of explanation, leaving the whole of his class baffled at his actions.
Soul gave chase about the time he had reached the front halls of the school, hot on his trail. But he walked on while his long-time friend tailed him, his determined stride not wavering even for a moment.
"Hey, Black Star, what are you doing, walking out of class like that? Where are you even going? Hey, talk to me, damn it!" Soul said, slightly irritated when his buddy did not even acknowledge him at his side as they both trudged on in unison down the hallways of the school.
"I have a plane to catch," the azure-haired technician explained simply, making his friend's expression falter.
"What?" the young Death Scythe muttered, failing to see the connection.
"I have a plane to catch that will leave without me unless I get going right away," the meister elaborated, widening his stride and quickening his pace as he did.
"But where are you going to? This is the first I've heard of a trip…"
"The mainland."
Soul deadpanned and his step halted when he heard his friend's explanation.
"Are you going to follow her? But… she'll come back eventually, right?" He got no response to these questions, so he pressed on. "What about your job at Shibusen? Are you planning on neglecting your responsibilities, Black Star?" His inquiries should've struck home but instead the pianist's companion marched onward without a glance back.
"Soul-kun is right, Black Star-kun," Shinigami-sama chirped in a sing-song voice, popping into the youngster's way, making him almost collide with the towering black figure. "Are you planning on neglecting your responsibilities to the school? I'm not sure how I'd feel about that if it happened."
Black Star eyed the shinigami levelly before side-stepping him and continuing on his way.
"There are some things that need to be said and done and the time has come for me to take care of mine." His tone held an air of finality that left both Shinigami-sama and Soul at a loss for words or a reaction in his way.
The young assassin arrived at the nearest airport to the place Tsubaki had been stationed in no time and he set off to trace her down as soon as possible while fixing his bag on his shoulder. He'd only grabbed a change of clothes and his gear in his haste to depart because he didn't have the attention to spare for idiocy when he had a mission.
He'd made up his mind exactly what he'd say when he found her and that he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. He wasn't going to let anything come between their partnership—relationship—not physical distance and most definitely not Shinigami.
He'd had it all planned out and unfolding in his mind's eye. He'd been so engrossed in his scenarios that he'd almost missed the woman with long raven hair that passed by him, in a direction opposite to the one he was heading. But his peripheral vision caught sight of her neatly gathered ponytail and he reacted on instinct, turning to look at the person whose silhouette so closely resembled that of his partner.
His emerald gaze locked with the deepest pair of navy blue eyes across the airport station, and his jaw fell slack just as the girl's face pulled into a look of complete surprise.
"Tsubaki?!" "Black Star!" they exclaimed simultaneously with equally incredulous looks. "What are you doing here?" they said in perfect unison again.
They stared in the direction he had left long after Black Star's back was no longer visible.
"He really actually left…" Soul finally piped up in a somewhat disbelieving tone.
"Oh, phooey… I guess he really did get very serious about this issue."
Soul eyed his superior suspiciously, catching something in his tone that most might not notice.
"Say, Shinigami-sama… You didn't purposefully send Tsubaki on that mission in such a quick matter in order to push Black Star into something, did you?"
The Grim Reaper laughed to himself in his silly manner, turning his back towards his young weapon.
"Why would you think that, Soul-kun? Do I really look like the crafty type to you?"
Soul laughed to himself wryly and muttered something about the most suspicious person around and shady plans.
The very air between them felt charged and it unsettled them in a way that made the very hairs on the backs of their necks stand on end with the excitement of the unlikely coincidence of their running into each other in the middle of nowhere.
"I just got off the plane from Death City. But what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be working hard at the local headquarters?"
The smile she was giving him as he stared at her as though she was an apparition that might disappear any moment made something in his chest shift and he felt even surer of his coming there.
"I just got my ticket and was about to board a plane as well."
Only then did his gaze zero in on the large bag in her hand's hold—the same bag she'd used to take her things away. There was another shift in his ribcage that made an unknown elation that he hadn't known for the last week spring up in him.
Tsubaki cocked her head curiously to the side.
"But, what are you doing here, really? Didn't Shinigami-sama tell you?"
The young man's brow rose at that.
"Tell me? Tell me what?"
"Oh, snap, I think I forgot to tell him… Was it important, I wonder?" Soul's ears perked up at that bit of information.
"What did you forget to tell him?"
"I forgot to say that Tsubaki's engagement is for a week only. Do you think it will turn out to be troublesome that I failed to mention that?"
The look on Soul's face was priceless right then. Because he couldn't help imagining Black Star's reaction to this kind of info.
Tsubaki's eyebrows rose worriedly as she looked at her meister tremble before her.
"Black Star?" she tried to break him out of his reverie, but he didn't seem to be paying her too much heed at that moment.
He was too busy shaking in barely controlled annoyance, his hand clenched in a fist in front of his face.
"That silly geezer… He really got me going this time around… Just you wait, danna, when I get back…" It was at that moment that Black Star made a silent vow to himself to get back at Shinigami-sama once they were back home in Death City.
Tsubaki set her bag down with her plane ticket on top of it and approached her technician cautiously.
"Are you alright, Black Star?" she asked in a tiny voice, starting to think that something must have happened to him.
She was completely taken aback—eyes wide and mouth agape—when he tugged her into a tight embrace, pulling her flush frame flush against his considerably larger one.
She gave an indignant squeak at the movement at first but made no move to release herself. Instead, she mumbled something about puzzlement and being in public and everyone staring. But Black Star really didn't care about who looked and who didn't, because, really,
"I'm alright; better than I've been the whole week, in fact." His arm, wrapped around her shoulders, pulled her closer into him yet, his face burrowed in her hair as she stood stiff in his hold.
And this had been part of the reason why he hadn't said anything beforehand. Because he had had to wait; wait to grow, wait to mature a bit more until he could say anything. Wait until he was taller than her, wait till he was broader than her, wait until he was stronger, until he had the right to utter a word of what he wanted to scream to her and to the world.
A moment or so passed and then she finally moved, her dainty arms snaking around him in reciprocation, the tension long gone from her shoulders.
"After I found out I was to stay here only for a week, I thought I could surprise you… I even took off a day earlier than schedule. I'm sorry I made you worry…" she murmured softly in his ear as she stroked his hair in a placating manner.
He opened his mouth and took a breath because if it was now, he could most definitely say what was on his mind. But the words wouldn't come—he had never been one of the most eloquent of people and he often had difficulty clothing his thoughts in words.
So, instead, he opted to pull away from her just enough to be able to look into her eyes, twin pools of contagious calm and serenity.
She smiled up at him and he swiftly dissolved the distance between them again with only a slight difference this time.
He had captured her mouth for the lightest and most innocent of kisses, letting his action speak volumes of the things he could not put into sentences.
And as Tsubaki returned his kiss with matching fervour, Black Star decided that he'd have to postpone his revenge against Shinigami-sama for after he thanked the man for the firm shove in the right direction.
A/N: Maybe it didn't come out quite right the way I wrote it, but the melodrama was because both Black Star and Tsubaki believed that Tsubaki's change of appointment was permanent. And perhaps you deciphered it in the narrative—in this ficlet I've introduced for your viewing pleasure "Shibusen Teacher Black Star", even though I'm not sure exactly what he is teaching. x3 Which is why he couldn't possibly have followed Tsubaki to her new post in the mainland—I decided to call Europe that, because I can and because it sounds cooler :D—thus why the melodrama in the beginning ensued.
It was difficult coming up with an interpretation for this prompt because no one has ever even considered coming between Black Star and Tsubaki but then this idea came to me and I thought, 'Why the hell not, sounds neat' and thus wrote this fic out. I'd love to hear what you thought of it. :3 Because I personally rather like it. x3
Story written for LJ's "30 Kisses" prompt number 4 – "Our distance and that person".
