Thank You
Before the huge buildings on the campus of KU, Yuuki Miaka tugged nervously on
the hem of her skirt. Thanking god that she had had the foresight to change
from the uniform that would have branded her a high school student, she scanned
the lush quad with large green eyes, bouncing slightly on the balls of her
feet.
"C'mon onii-chan," she murmured, checking her watch, "you said three
thirty..."
The girl sighed, adjusting the heavy bag on her shoulder, but took a
moment to enjoy the warmth of the day. It was nice to break from this constant
work she had to do to make up for the month of school she had missed. Ironic,
every time she looked at the wrinkly, over-made up face of her juku teacher she
could think that she saved this woman's life, saved the whole darn city, and
that month in the world of the four gods was necessary.
But that's not something you can just say, she thought. And she had to graduate high school, even though she first just wanted to drop out when Taka proposed to her, she
knew deep inside how well she did in school was always too important, not just
to her family, but to her too.
"Miaka!" Her brother's voice rang across the campus and Miaka turned, an
exasperated expression on her face.
"Finally," she said lightheartedly as she unceremoniously handed her
brother her duffel bag.
"Oi," he muttered, lifting it with difficulty over his shoulder, "why the
heck did you bring rocks to lunch?"
She blinked, "Onii-chan, remember? Mom and Dad are going on a second
honeymoon and they said I could stay with you and Tetsuya in your new place."
At the mention of his name, her brother's dark haired, sunglass-adorened friend
raised his head.
"I was not told of this," he said pointedly to his roommate, and Yuuki
Keisuke sweatdropped slightly.
He shrugged helplessly, "Selective memory?"
Tetsuya sighed.
~~
The cafeteria was bustling, the din and clatter of dozens of eating
patrons assaulted Miaka's ears almost immediately. Balancing her tray as she
followed her brother, who was still balking at having to pay for his sister's
inhuman appetite, Miaka let her eyes search the sea of people for familiar
sandy brown hair.
"Ne, onii-chan, is Taka around?" She asked as they sat down.
Keisuke looked up, "Did he know you were going to come to visit the
school today? I'm surprised he hasn't been trailing me all day waiting for
you."
Her eyes lowered for just a moment to the insane amount of food piled on
her tray, slim fingers tugged at a package of crackers. "Well," she said, "we
haven't really talked in a while," she looked up smiling, "with his new jobs
and my school work we've just been busy. After the whole nasty deal with the
scroll, I think we are all playing catch-up."
Keisuke was sure he had seen that smile before...
Tetsuya and Keisuke exchanged a look. Or rather, Keisuke tried to
exchange a look with his friend, but on the reflective surface of Tetsuya's
oakleys, Keisuke felt for a second that he was exchanging a look with himself.
But he knew the look in Tetsuya's eyes well enough. 'I'm not chipping in for
your little sister's eating expenses if she stays with us.'
"Ano... Miaka," Keisuke said carefully, "are you sure you want to stay
with us?"
She laughed, "I'm pretty sure I don't! But Mom said I had to, she
doesn't want me alone for a week with all 'weird stuff that has been
happening'." The irony was obviously amusing... when the 'weird stuff' had
been happening, Miaka was quite literally, right in the middle of it.
"What about staying with the Hongos?"
"Out of town," she said automatically, "Yui and family went up to the hot
springs for a week." Tetsuya nodded his affirmation.
"How can Mom think this is appropriate? You rooming with us for nearly a
week?" Keisuke said, his voice taking on an interesting pitch, "Living in an
apartment with two men?"
"My brother and my best friend's boyfriend?"
"But-"
Tetsuya smirked, "Obviously she assumes you'll be a responsible
chaperone, Keisuke."
"Hey, sis, just stay with Taka!"
"Some chaperone..." Tetsuya muttered.
"Actually, forget I said that." Keisuke blushed slightly, "That wouldn't
be too good, either..."
"Gee, ya think?" Tetsuya added, "that would thrill your mother."
Miaka had long since stopped following the conversation, focusing on the
much more interesting act of eating.
"Did Yui bake you any more cookies?" Miaka asked, grinning when she
paused to breathe.
"Iie," Testuya ran an embarrassed hand through his hair, "it was just
that one time... but they were very good."
For some reason, Miaka giggled at that and was about to reply when two
warm hands suddenly closed around her eyes.
"Guess who?"
She couldn't stop the grin that tugged at her mouth. 'I guess I didn't
realize just how much I missed him,' she thought, reaching up to touch Taka's
hands.
"Um," Miaka said, "is it that cute guy who asked for my number at the
metro stop today?"
The hands disappeared and a fist gently clonked her on head.
"Not funny," Taka said and she turned around, resting her arms on the
back of her chair and looking up at him adoringly. He looked as if he had just
gotten back from a workout, in shorts and university t-shirt. His dark hair
was ruffled slightly, and his eyes were dancing when he smiled back at her.
"I missed you," she whispered, aware of stupid and girlish she sounded
but not really caring.
"I missed you too," he said tenderly. Then the smile slipped from his
face and was replaced with a very serious look.
"So what guy wanted your number?" he demanded.
~~
"So a second honeymoon, huh?" he said later as the four sat at the table,
trays empty, "so I guess it's working out good between them then."
Miaka nodded, "Yup! Mom is so happy, I'm glad for them. Still, I sort of
wish I could have come on that cruise! They are always taking trips together."
Tetsuya grinned, "Oh you definitely wouldn't want to go on a vacation
with a couple of newlyweds."
Taka laughed and Keisuke covered his face with his hands, "That's my
_mother_ people!"
Miaka groaned and buried her head in her arms on the table, "Ditto.
Besides, I _live_ with those newlyweds."
"Speaking of newlyweds, have you picked a date yet?" Keisuke turned the
conversation back to slightly more pleasant topics.
"Like we've had time!" Miaka said, "plus with what Mom thinks, and school
and everything... we'll probably have to wait a while."
The smile from earlier was back on the face. Keisuke realized he had seen
that smile on his sister's face before... when she and Yui had a fight, when
she was left alone after the first adventure in the Universe of the Four Gods,
when she didn't get into Jonan. When she pretended everything was okay, and it
wasn't.
Worried, he opened his mouth to ask her if she was really okay, when a
smart beeping sound interrupted him.
"Oh!" Miaka said, turning off the alarm her watch, "I forgot, I have to
pick up some papers before school closes. Onii-chan, you have got my bag,
right?" He nodded mutely. A grateful smile spread across her face, "Arigatou.
I'll meet you back the apartment in about forty five minutes."
She turned to go and froze when she felt a warm hand catch her wrist.
"Miaka."
Hazel eyes stared into green ones. 'Taka...'
"Hey, don't you have a class?" Tetsuya asked his freshman friend
conversationally.
"Kuso!" Taka grabbed his backpack and gave Miaka a rushed smile, "I'll
stop by later."
Nodding, Miaka waved and ran off, dodging helpless students as she
hurried back to Yotsuba.
"No, you won't," Keisuke said to Taka from behind a psychology textbook,
"I'm not running a hotel."
"Hey, Keisuke... don't you owe me money?" he asked suddenly and Keisuke
looked up.
"Okay, you can stop by."
"Great!" Taka said, "Thanks, onii-chan," laughing he punched Keisuke's
shoulder before rushing off to class.
Tetsuya leaned his head on his hand and sighed.
"You gotta stop pimping your sister, Keisuke."
"What?! I'm not doing anything like that!! It's just convenient that Taka
forgets depts when I go lax on my protective big-brother act that's all."
"Right." Tetsuya muttered.
"Don't YOU have a class?" Keisuke asked his friend.
Tetsuya grinned, adjusted his sunglasses, the picture of Cool.
"Probably."
~~
"Brown-eyed girl," Keisuke sang along with the radio, badly, "yo-ou, my
brown eyed girl…"
"Shut up!" Tetsuya called from behind the closed door of his room, "some
of us are trying to study!"
Ignoring him, Keisuke tossed the spoon he had been using a 'microphone'
to his younger sister, "Hit it, Miaka!"
Startling, she looked up from where she had been sitting on their small
couch, staring blankly out the window.
"Huh?" she stared at the spoon.
"Don't worry about Tetsuya, he's not studying, he's secretly reading
Tenchi fanfiction. Sad, I know, but we try not to talk about it-Miaka?"
Blinking, she looked back up at her brother, "I'm sorry, what?"
"You okay, sis?" he said, eyebrows knitting together as he leaned against
the window and looked at her.
"Yes, of course," she said, untucking her legs from under her and
standing, "I was just thinking."
"About?" he prompted her.
"Stuff," she said, "you know, what happened a few months ago with the
scroll, what happened before that with the book… "
"Miaka, are you okay?" he said, "Lately I've been worried about how
you've been holding up with everything."
She laughed at his serious expression, and handed him the spoon again.
"Yes," she said, "I am okay." He looked unconvinced and she widened her
smile.
"I have everything I need," her right hand automatcially brushed her
engagement ring.
"Okay-" he started but then she reached over his shoulder and defty
turned up the volume on the radio.
"Go back to karaoke, onii-chan." Grinning, she walked into the hallway
to the sounds of her brother's butchering of "Take My Breath Away" and
Tetsuya's desperate pleas for him to shut up.
Then when she reached to phone on the wall her smile faded. On
impulse, she dialed a series of familiar numbers and then hung up again.
Sighing, she leaned back against the wall and wondered how many more pages of
translations sensei wanted for tomorrow.
~~
Taka sighed with relief as he finally flipped the sign on the door of
the resturant to "closed".
"Long day," Akiko said from behind the reguister, "I thought that group of
people would never leave!"
He nodded his agreement, feeling a headache coming on. "Yeah, today
sucked."
"And how many cups of coffee can one woman drink?!" the pretty waitress
went on.
"Akiko-san, you talk too much," the manager said as he came out of the
kitchen.
"Thanks you two for volunteering to stay late, we have an entire kitchen
of dirty dishes to clean, and a register to cash out so let's get moving."
Behind his back, Akiko was mouthing, 'volunteering' with a sarcastic
expression on her face.
"Hey, Taka-san," Akiko called to him as he was lifting chairs on top of
the tables, "someone paged you earlier."
She lifted the small black beeper up from the pile of personal items in
the employee lockers, and at his gesture she tossed it to him.
Taka's face fell as he looked at the numbers flashed across the screen.
"Miaka," he sighed, looking at his watch. "It's too late to call back."
"Your fiancée?"
"She's at her brother's for a few days," he said, "I haven't seen much of
her lately… I stayed late tonight because we need the money… really badly…"
"God, Taka," the girl said, leaning back against the table, "the girl
doesn't give a damn that you made an extra 2000 yen working late."
He just ran a finger over the number on the beeper, the short message,
'No emergency. But please call.'
"Obviously you miss her," Akiko added, "you have to make time to see her,
Romeo."
She grinned, "No excuses. Especially since I have you a feeling you
aren't listening to a word I'm saying, because someone else is in your mind
right now…"
~~
Miaka had jumped about a mile in the air when he entered the apartment,
and Taka laughed at her expression.
"So do you like it?" he asked, "my new place."
"Yes!" she said, "it's nice! I oughta know, since I just spent the last
half hour covering everything in tarp."
"Ready to do some serious painting?" he asked, lifting the two buckets of
paint he held in each hand.
She glanced down at her old overalls, orange stripped t-shirt and bare
feet. "Would I be dressed like this if I wasn't?" she said, grinning.
After sloshing her brush into the blue paint, Miaka paused and stood back
looking at the candy pink wall before her. The blue dripped down her wrist as
she stood there, thinking.
"Y'know, Taka," she said, squishing up her childlike nose, "I sorta like
the pink thing. Can we keep it?"
Wide eyes searched her innocent green ones for any sign she was joking.
"Miaka," he said, carefully, "I-I already bought all this paint… and it's
expensive…"
She started laughing suddenly, making him blink and then scowl at her.
"Miaka! That's not funny! I think I had a heart attack!"
Giggling, she pushed her bangs back from her face, leaving a thick blue
streak above one eye. "Oh!" she cried, looking at her paint-stained hand and
wrist.
"Smooth move," he started and then found himself with a blue nose.
"Hey…" he grabbed her wrist, slippery with paint, and she turned around
quickly to retaliate and found their faces inches apart. He froze immediately,
completely under her spell. The pulse in her wrist was beating quickly against
his fingers. "Miaka…"
She saw his eyes dart to her lips, ever so slowly she lifted blue-stained
fingers rest gently on the side of his face…
"I'm getting paint on you," she murmured, and he shut his eyes.
"That could be incriminating," he agreed just as softly, his breath on
her lips.
The walls were still completely pink, Miaka's brush was still in her
right hand, dripping onto the tarp beside her as Taka kissed her gently,
pulling her tightly against him, one hand in her hair, the other pressed
against her back. For a moment she went automatically to raise her other hand,
and startled at the weight of the brush, and the return to reality. Her
brother and Tetsuya would be there to help in about a half an hour and with the
way this was going the walls wouldn't be touched and that would be pretty hard
to explain.
"Ano," she said softly, pulling away slightly and shifting her gaze to
the wall, "now that I think about it, the pink is sort of ugly…"
Taking a deep breath, he nodded, giving her a half smile, "Gee, we should
paint it over or something."
She grinned, and stepped up the wall, ceremoniously painting a wide blue
streak across the garish pink.
"Let's get started."
"Miaka, you just can't paint," he said, after a while, pausing his thin,
even strokes.
Her side of the wall, it was true, was dripping with thick, blobby paint
in all directions. Frowning, she took her brush and swiped it quickly across
his side of the wall.
"Oops," she said, sweetly.
Blue strands of hair fell across her face, drops decorated her hands,
clothes and feet. Her hair was falling lose of the pigtails she had it in.
Feeling his gaze on her, she glanced down at her paint-covered clothing and
blushed.
Despite himself, he felt a smile tug at his mouth, "You know, Miaka, you
are supposed to get the paint on the _wall_."
"You should talk!" she cried, and he blinked, as she ran to her purse and
carefully pulled out a mirror compact, now stained with her blue fingerprints
as she handed into him.
Surprisingly, she was right, paint streaked down both sides of his face,
speckled his hair and old KU t-shirt. Her fingerprints across the side of his
face were barely there now.
"Maybe you shouldn't have splattered on me so much," he reflected.
"Maybe I wouldn't have if you hadn't keep insulting my paint job!"
"You were writing 'Miaka is awesome'!"
"I painted over it!" she pointed out, "I also wrote 'I love Taka.'"
"Yeah, that was okay," he conceded and she paused a minute.
"Taka?"
"Yeah?"
Miaka pulled on his arms until he knelt down on the tarp. Then, "Hold
still," she instructed.
She dipped her fingers in the blue and pushed his hair away from his
face. Slowly, and with great concentration, she began to write across his
forehead with her pinky finger. He inquired to what she was doing, only to be
shushed and again told to stay still.
Tendrils of red-brown hair and the stirring of her breath were tickling
his neck and face as she hovered over him. Nearly crossing his eyes, he tried
to look up at her clearly, but couldn't so instead he concentrated on eye
level… the hem of her tee shirt against her neck and shoulders, the bib of her
overalls over the contour of her chest… he shut his eyes.
"Done!" she said, cheerfully, kneeling in front of him and handing him
her mirror.
Flipping it open, he pulled up his bangs and read what she wrote.
His mouth caught between opening in shock and laughing out loud.
"Hee hee," she scampered away, "I figured it was better than the 'oni'
symbol in any case…"
He caught up with her quickly and she raised wet, blue hands. "Stay
away! I have paint!! And I know how to use it!"
In one movement he caught both her wrists and she would have shrieked if
he hadn't pressed his lips against hers. She shook her hands free and buried
them in his hair, paint and all. He hugged her to him, arms locked around her
back, between her overalls and t-shirt.
"Um," she managed to say in a moment of air, "this wouldn't look good…"
"Paint everywhere our hands were?" he agreed, not letting her go, not
stopping his assault of kisses, "yeah, that'd would really look bad when your
brother gets here."
She shut her eyes and leaned against his chest. Sighing, he admitted
defeat and slipped his arms innocently around her waist. And that's how
Tetsuya and Keisuke found them a few moments later, sitting, backs against the
solid pink of one of the unpainted walls.
"Awwww," Keisuke coo-ed, "how cute."
"Taka, Miaka-chan, you are _covered_ in paint!" Tetsuya cried, and
Keisuke took a moment to laugh at this little sister.
"Miaka, about as good at painting as cooking, ne," he said, and she
smiled oh-so-innocently and stood up, opening her arms.
"Onii-chan, you need a hug!"
"No! You stay away demon-child!"
As she chased her brother with a paintbrush, Tetsuya squinted at Taka's
face.
"Ne, Taka?" he asked.
"Hai?"
"Why do you have 'property of Yuuki Miaka' painted across your forehead?"
~~
Now all four walls were smoothly painted a nice, un-pink color and all
evidence of Miaka's experiments in art were painted over. But if he looked
really carefully he could almost still read 'I love Taka' beneath the layers of
blue.
The next time he saw her, he realized, it was in the college cafeteria with her
brother, and even that had been brief. Outside thunder echoed throughout the
city, and sheets of rain began to fall. The digits on his watch flashed 12:02
am when Taka quickly punched a few numbers into the restaurant's phone.
~~
Miaka tugged her legs up to her chest, watching the rain fall on the
window. Keisuke set her up on the couch in the living room, and she couldn't
sleep. It wasn't just because the couch was obviously stuffed with various
types of scrap metal, but because her mind was spinning. She had been so
confident, that they would be together forever. Even right before the battle,
when they found comfort in each other's arms, it wasn't because they feared
they would never see each other again, but a sort of promise that they would.
He told her, half coherently, that he wanted to take her to see the stars. And
after he fell asleep she sat up and watched him, thinking, "I won't let you
disappear, I love you too much…"
Cringing, she stood up and stretched her legs a little.
Nightmare after nightmare, school assignment after school assignment,
still it wasn't hard for her to still be cheerful, still be happy. Some
ignorant people called it shallowness, ditziness, but it wasn't, it took a
special kind of strength to smile through adversity. But, still, she needed
him… no matter how much she laughed, how much she smiled…she wanted to be with
him forever… isn't that what being in love was about?
Leaning her forehead against the cool glass she shut her eyes for a few
moments until an insistent and familiar sound made her snap to attention and
start to dig in her suitcase.
The beeper was cold in her hand but the message warmed her heart, 'Is it
too late to stop by?' He didn't leave a number.
Walking to the phone, she quickly dialed his beeper number and two
letters.
'No.'
~~
The rain was coming down in sheets, streams coursing down the gutter,
puddles in the sidewalk and streets reflecting rainbows of oil slicks. City
rain, noisy, dirty and soaking. Having long since discarded the newspaper he
had been futility using against the deluge, Taka resorted to simply attempting
to dodge the raindrops. His sneakers splashed through puddles and he came to
rest under a nearby bus stop.
"Twenty one blocks seems a lot closer in good weather," he muttered,
shaking droplets out of his hair. "Too bad I don't have the change for a bus."
Laughing a little, he leaned against the damp glass and took a deep
breath. Keisuke had better let him stay the night. Hell, even this one-way
trip from the café to the apartment was enough to hole him up with the flu for
the next two weeks. Miaka would kill him when she realized he didn't take the
bus, didn't even have a jacket. Probably was pretty stupid, he reflected,
stealing himself up for the last few blocks, 'but I don't care.'
I've done much dumber things in my life… for much lesser causes.
~~
It bothered Miaka that she was so busy.
It bothered her that Taka was always at work, or school and they hardly ever saw each other.
It bothered her no plans for the wedding had been made.
It worried her that she kept getting nightmares of Taka disappearing, both fading from existence like he almost had, and sometimes just leaving, like her father did. It scared her that sometimes they would just get so swept away in what they were feeling and didn't think of the consequences until afterward.
It concerned her that sometimes she loved him so much it was a like physical pain. She didn't even realize until the gentle knock on the door came, how much she desperately, desperately, needed him there to calm her fears.
~~
"Taka, you idiot!" she whispered as she tugged him through the door,
"what, did you walk?!"
She hugged him tightly, not caring the dampness that
soaked through to her skin. It felt so good to be in his arms, she didn't even
care the fabric of his t-shirt was wet to her touch, his warmth still
penetrated the chill of the water.
He shivered slightly, dripping wet and grinning like an moron, "No, I
ran," he told her, kissing her ear.
Miaka blinked and shook her head at him.
"You're freezing," she lectured halfheartedly.
"You're warm, though," he pulled her closer. It was true, the heat from
her body pressed against his was erasing the chill from the rain quite
effectively.
"I can't believe you walked here…" Miaka said, leaning her head on his
chest, arms relaxed around his thin waist.
She was about to go root through her brother's things for some warm
clothes when Taka gently took her face in both his hands and pressed his
forehead to hers.
Green eyes blinked curiously, but his smile was gone.
Fat drops water from his shirt were falling on the collar of her
nightgown, the strands of his hair were sending streams of rainwater down both
their faces, but she didn't move away, didn't even flinch.
"Miaka," he whispered to her, eyes intense and very serious, "please stop
hiding."
At this she did start, and pull away slightly. Suddenly cold, she pulled
at her thin sleeves.
"What do you mean?" she asked, voice wavering slightly.
"I know you, Miaka," he started, "I know things are bothering you. "
Her gaze turned to the window, the water streaming down the glass.
"I know how you put other people before yourself and would never ask too
much," he continued, "But sometimes you just have to complain a little."
Her lips began to tremble.
"So many people love you, Miaka," he said, flustered at the tears forming
in her eyes, "but me most of all… I know I've been busy lately" he was
faltering, nervous, because he did not want her to cry, so badly he wanted to
keep her happy...
"but I got the pagers for us so we could always be in touch, no matter what.
So that when you needed me…
"When you needed me…" Taka took a ragged breath, "I could run through a
thunderstorm just to comfort you!
All you have to do is ask…"
A flash of lightening and she threw her arms around him again, he lifted
her up in arms, off the floor, all the aches from six straight hours of
waitering suddenly gone from his body. He kissed her generously, and it was
long while before her feet gently touched the carpet again.
"Thank you," she said, eyes smiling up at him, Miaka's trademark genki
expression disarming him completely.
For a long, long time, not another word was spoken.
But none needed to be.
~~
"Miaka?" Keisuke, yawned, walking into the kitchen, "Did you come into my
room last ni-"
He froze in midyawn, fist up to mouth, one arm in the air.
On the sofa, Miaka, clad in one of his old sweatshirts over her
nightgown, was fast asleep, wrapped in Taka's arms. He slept soundly too, in
just his jeans, his t-shirt was drying over the heater.
For a long, long moment Yuuki Keisuke just stared at his little sister
with wide eyes.
"Huh," he said finally, thoughtfully, "they both fit on that couch…"
~~fin~~
yey all done!
Hm, I wrote another fic like this from Taka's POV (I love that man so much! ^^ Which is strange b/c I'm not a Tamahome fan... anyway) but someone gave me less-than-stellar feedback on it, so I'm not sure if I wanna post it or not... hmm... what do you think?
Anyway, no matter what, you read it, now you have to reveiw it! (sort of like you-break-it-you-buy-it). So reveiw!! Puh-lease??
