Chapter/Episode 8 – A Young Goddess's Crush
The rays of the sun reflected off a shiny silver and white metal frame, with the only sounds in the forest on this perfect July summer day being the gusts and turning of wheels of a lone figure. A boy races on his bicycle through a wide forest pathway of cherry blossoms. His destination was the temple at the top of the hill, a place where he had lately become a frequent visitor to. For the past few weeks, riding through this familiar scene had become more pleasant and enjoyable each and every day that he passed through it.
"I hope that we can get Banpei working today." He thought to himself. "Skuld. She's really something. At first, I didn't even know what to say to her, let alone any girl, but now I really enjoy being around her. I guess that's why I've been looking forward to my bicycle trips that I've taken these past few weeks."
He began to accelerate as he headed towards a stream near the end of the arched cherry blossom pathway. Instead of heading for the small bridge, he turned instead to leap himself into the air using a rock as ramp, soaring effortlessly and landing on the opposite bank. As he climbed the hill, he emerged onto a small walkway with the Morisato temple in sight.
Inside of her room, screws, wires, and various tools were strewn all over the place. Skuld was at her computer, speedily typing away without a pause.
"Okay, go!" Skuld yelled as finally ceased typing to lift up one hand and slam the Return key with her finger. Banpei was connected to the computer through ribbon cables and various wires. She began to hear a whirring from inside Banpei. He stood up and turned his head from left to right and back, looking around the room. Suddenly all of his limbs began to flail wildly out of control as he was spouting gibberish.
"!#$%##@*&!?%$!@$%^&^%^$#&^%$"
"Oh no! Stop, stop!" Skuld panicked as she frantically typed in some commands and hit the Return key again, stopping Banpei in his tracks and with the whirring sound spinning down.
"Sighhh…."
Sentarou approached the front door which was half opened and entered.
"Hello?"
"Hey Sentarou. Here to see Skuld again? She's in her room." Keiichi said as he rounded the corner to greet him
"How's she doing?"
"I think she'll be glad to see you right now. She's been working on him since early this morning."
Sentarou made his way to Skuld's room. As he entered, he noticed Skuld lying at the floor looking up at the ceiling.
"I wish Sentarou was here right now." She said. As she looked towards the door, she immediately sprung up. "Hey, I'm so happy that you're here! Please help me!"
"Okay, let's see what we've got…"
Throughout the afternoon, Skuld and Sentarou worked together like a team, taking turns typing and making adjustments to Banpei. After 3 hours, it was time to give it another go.
"Okay, here we go." Sentarou pressed the Return key and looked at Banpei who booted up again. He stood up and looked back at him. Approaching Sentarou, he reached out to grab and shake his right hand."
"HE LLO. NICE..TO..MEET..YOU (beep) (beep)"
Skuld was overwhelmed with joy. "You did it!!" She looked at Banpei and hugged him. "It's good to have you back." She turned to Sentarou and leaped over to hug him.
"Thank you sooo much."
"Oh, uh, no problem." They both blushed red, just now realizing they were hugging each other.
"(Wow, I didn't mean to do this. It feels strange, but kind of nice too.)"
Skuld pulled away. "Ahem. Thank you for your help, Sentarou. You really helped me out a lot."
"Oh, um, your welcome…you know, this was fun. I never thought I'd get to work on something like this. Banpei here is really amazing." Banpei walked ups to Sentarou.
"SEN TA ROU…(beep) (beep) NICE TO MEET YOU" he grabbed his hand again and shook it very hard, almost throwing him.
"H-h-hey! T-take it easy!"
"Banpei, let him go." Banpei stopped immediately.
"Whew! Well, he's working for the most part. We should do a check later on his motion relay circuits."
"Okay."
"Well, um…I'd better get going. Megumi is expecting me."
As they walked outside towards Sentarou's bike, he was thinking to himself that he should say something to her. After all, these past few weeks had been a big change for him. This was the first time he had ever felt this comfortable with a girl. It had been so much fun working with Skuld, and that he always looked forward to each coming day just to see her. As Sentarou climbed onto his bike, he was frantically thinking of what to say to her.
"Uh Skuld?"
"What's the matter?"
"Oh, uh, nothing. Well, you see…I uh"
"Hey, if there's something you wanna tell, just say it."
He managed to pull himself together. "Skuld, I just…want to say…that you're fun and really nice, and uh, I'm glad that I got to help you."
Skuld felt a little disappointed. It was flattering his compliments that he gave her, but was kind of hoping that he would want to see her again.
"Anyways, um…I'll see you tomorrow."
"Hmm? Oh, uh yeah. I'll see you tomorrow then."
As Sentarou began to ride off, although Skuld had managed to produce a smile, it gradually turned to sadness as he disappeared through the gate.
"(Did I do something wrong? Did I make him mad? Wait a minute! Why do I care? It's not I like him! But why do I feel so strange? Like a soft and warm feeling?) I know! I'll ask sis about this!" Skuld immediately dashes inside to find Belldandy.
******
At Megumi's apartment, Sentarou and Megumi are sitting down at the table with some tea. A few boxes were scattered around her apartment since she had brought some of Keiichi's and her stuff from home.
"So Sentarou, you've been hanging out with Skuld a lot huh?"
"Well, yes. I've been helping her with her robot, Banpei. She's really amazing, especially with how she built him." Sentarou quickly took a sip of his tea, hoping that Megumi wouldn't pry any further. Megumi slyly looked him, obviously going for the kill with her next question.
"Soo…do you like her?"
"Huh? Well, I…I enjoy hanging out with her. She's really nice…and fun." He managed to say. Of course, he wasn't hiding anything with his face starting to turn red with embarrassment.
"Well, then just ask her out."
"What? But Megumi, I can't do that."
"Why not hmmm? You just said that you enjoy spending time with her. Come on, what do you have to lose?"
"But Megumi I...I don't even know how."
"Hey, it's simple. Just ask her if she would like to go out sometime to the movies, the aquarium, or any place fun you can think of."
"Do you think it'll work?"
"Yeah, of course it will. Trust me." She assured him as she winked and patted him on the shoulder.
"Well, I guess…I'll give it a try."
"There ya go. I know she'll say yes."
Sentarou takes another sip of his tea and proceeds to change the subject to avoid the topic of his now obvious crush.
"Hey, you know, Keiichi's really lucky. He has a wonderful girlfriend. Belldandy is really nice, and very pretty. How did he meet her?"
"Well…hmmm…hey, you know what? I never really thought about that. I just remembered when his dorm kicked him out a few years ago for having a girl there. And when I found him moving in at the temple, I just assumed he met her at Nekomi Tech and just left it at that. I've never really asked him about that."
******
Skuld peeked into the living room to find Keiichi and Belldandy hard at work with some schematics for a motorcycle Chihiro had asked to be restored for the motor club show.
"The frame itself is going to take a lot of work. I'll have to talk to Tamiya about this…"
"All of these motorcycles and racing vehicles are for the show?"
"Yeah. It's gonna take all of the members of the club to get them done in time. We have a little over a month and a half to get ready, since the show is in August."
Belldandy looks up to see Skuld standing in the doorway.
"Oh hi Skuld!"
"Belldandy, can I talk to you about something?"
"Of course!"
Keiichi begins to get up. "I'll leave you two alone so you can talk…"
"Actually, I need to ask you too. I-it's about Sentarou."
Keiichi sits back down. Skuld hesitates for a moment to say anything.
"Well, when Sentarou left earlier, he told me that I was nice and fun to be with, then he left in a hurry. Has he said anything to you Keiichi?"
"No…I wouldn't worry too much about it Skuld. From what I remember about Sentarou, he's really shy around a lot of people. But you know what? I've never seen him this way before."
"What? What do you mean?"
"Since he's been coming over here, he's been more energetic and seems to show a lot more confidence than he used to. I'm really glad for you. It sounds like you've been a very good influence on him."
"But why am I even worried about this? It's not like I…"
"Oh!…Well, I think that he probably feels the same way about you too, Skuld. He may just be having a hard time with how to deal with it or how to say it."
"But what feelings are those?"
"It's the feeling of love." Belldandy said.
"What is love like?"
"Love is a powerful force. It can be a warmth that starts deep inside of you and grows as you feel it more. Caring and a strong sense of connection with the ones who are close to your heart are what make it so special. That's what makes the power of a goddess so great."
"Is that what I'm feeling for Sentarou? But it can't be! I can't be feeling love for him!"
"One of the most wonderful things about love is when you find it and you begin to understand for yourself what it is."
Keiichi smiled adoringly as he listened to what Belldandy was telling Skuld. What Belldandy was saying was very true. He knew that for him, it was something that came unexpectedly. But nevertheless, with Belldandy, it is something that he never wants to let go of. Yet, sometimes the difficult part is being able to say the words to express that feeling to the one who means so much to you.
******
The next day, Sentarou and Skuld were once again at work on Banpei. After a few hours that morning, the fine tuning that they had done on his motion and sensory relay circuits had finally paid off.
"We did it! He looks great!"
"Yeah! All I need to do is reinstall my security protocol, but I'll do that later." Skuld says. Suddenly, she grabs Sentarou's hand.
"Come on! Let's go do something! We have to celebrate!"
"H-hey!"
After a short walk, Skuld and Sentarou ended up getting some ice cream at a stand nearby the university and ended up stopping at the fountain in the center of the Nekomi Tech campus.
"I can't believe I'm going to be starting here when this summer's over."
"So you'll be going to classes like Belldandy and Keiichi."
"Yeah. I'm glad that I know a few familiar faces here, so at least it won't be lonely."
"What about the others that were here that 1st day?"
"The other students at that meeting are older than me. You see, I graduated early from my school, and even then, I didn't have that many friends. The ones I did have already left and are going to study in America. So all I have are Keiichi and Megumi. They've been like a brother and sister to me, especially since I'm an only child."
"When Belldandy left and came here to live with Keiichi, I started to feel lonely too. All I really had was her."
"What about Urd?"
"I don't get along with her that well. I just wish she would stop treating me like a kid."
"Well, I don't think that you're a little kid…I think that you're really great. Not too many people besides Keiichi and Megumi have been this nice to me."
"Well those people are stupid! Who cares about them anyways right?"
"I guess you're right."
"Yeah, because you know what? You won't be lonely anymore, because not only do you have Keiichi and Megumi, you have me. And my sister Belldandy too."
"Thanks Skuld."
"Hee hee. You're welcome…you know what? We should do this more often."
"Yeah. This is nice…Hey, do you want to do something tomorrow, like maybe go to the aquarium?"
"The aquarium?! Really?! I've never been there. Belldandy told me that she went with Keiichi once, and I've wanted to go since!"
"Okay, then tomorrow afternoon then.(Wow! I can't believe I just did that. Megumi was right. And that just came out naturally too.)"
"Ohhh! I can't wait!"
******
That evening at Megumi's apartment:
"Well, congratulations Sentarou. I told you it was easy. So…what do you have planned for your guys' date tomorrow?" Megumi asked as she sat down with Sentarou at the table.
"The aquarium, and I thought maybe we'd go rollerskating in the park."
"Hey, not bad."
"I hope she'll like it. I've never done this before."
"You'll be fine. Just be yourself, like you have been." Megumi folds her hands and rests her head on them. "Sentarou, you've really grown up a lot. Both Keiichi and I are really happy for you."
"I've never felt like this before. It's like I feel more…"
"Confident about yourself? I agree. You definitely seem like it. Sentarou, you never gave yourself enough credit before. You're one of the nicest guys that Keiichi and I have ever known. We know this, and so does Belldandy, Urd…and Skuld."
"This is a big change. But a good one though."
"Just remember that you don't ever have to worry about being alone, because you have all of us." Megumi assured him.
"That's what Skuld said too."
******
The next day:
Sentarou arrived at the temple early in the afternoon. As he entered the front door, he could hear hurried footsteps coming from down the hallway.
"Hi!" Skuld rounded the hallway and stopped in front of him.
"Hi! Well, uh ready to go?"
"Yeah! Let's go!"
Keiichi, Belldandy, and Urd came from around the corner as well.
"Have a wonderful time you two!" Belldandy delightfully said.
"Yeah. Today's a nice day out. Have a good time."
"Just be sure you don't cause any trouble you two."
"Urd!!"
"Uh, anyways, we'll see you later. Bye!"
Skuld and Sentarou opened the door and stepped out into the summer day. Skuld walked with her hands folded behind her, anxiously waiting for what Sentarou had planned.
Belldandy turned to look at Keiichi, who watched them with great cheerfulness as they left the grounds of the temple. She could sense his joy that he had for his young friend, for she felt it too for how happy her little sister was.
******
Sentarou had the afternoon planned out, which was a nice change from looking at the computer screen and tinkering with circuits. The aquarium was their first stop for the afternoon. This was Skuld's first time visiting. Never having the chance to look at sea life this closely, this quickly became an exciting start to their day together.
"Oh, look at those! What are these things called?" as Skuld ran to a large tank of what look to be large flattened fish with long tails.
"These are manta rays. Some people call them stingrays. And there are some turtles over there too."
"Wow! They look so cute! It's almost like they're flying."
"There are a lot of interesting animals that live in the ocean. It's really amazing when you get to see them up close like this."
"I wanna see more! Come on! Show me!" Skuld grabs Sentarou and drags him along.
So far the afternoon started out well. Next up on their list was the park where they took a break to enjoy some snow cones at a park bench.
"Is this ice cream?"
"Not quite. You've never had snow cones? Try it. It's just as good as ice cream. I think you'll like it."
Skuld examined the red colored slush for a moment. Not quite sure what to expect, she decided to take a lick to taste it. Its sweet taste, which was distinctively different from ice cream, but just as enjoyable definitely appealed to her.
"Hey, this tastes good! I like it!" Skuld didn't waste anytime as she quickly ate up the flavored slush. Sentarou started to smile, happy to know that Skuld was enjoying herself, and realized that this was the first time in a long time that he has had this much fun.
"So what are we going to do next?" she asked as she continued to devour her snow cone.
"I was thinking…that maybe you'd like to go roller skating around here?"
"Hey, that means that I can try out my new invention. I just happened to bring it with me."
"What is it?"
"Oh, you'll see."
Sentarou noticed something on Skuld's shoulder and began to reach over to brush it off.
"Hey, Skuld? Wait a second. You have a bug on your…"
Skuld jumped up flailing her arms in a panic. "Bug! Where! Ahh! I hate bugs!! Where is it so I can squash it!" Her first instinct was to reach for her mallet on her back, but stopped as she frantically spun around trying to find it.
"Huh? I don't see it. Where did it go?"
"It's gone Skuld. Actually it wasn't a bug. It was just a leaf." Sentarou responded in a suppressed tone.
"Whew! That had me worried for a second. I thought that maybe there was another system leakage. Don't scare me like that Sen…" Skuld said as she turned back around towards Sentarou. Her relief immediately turned to shock. During those few seconds of confusion, Skuld had thrown the remainder of her snow cone into the air, which ended on his head, with the melted slush soaking him.
"(Gasps) Oh no! I'm sorry!"
Sentarou wasn't the type of person to get upset over mishaps since he was used to it, mostly involving his bicycle. Interestingly enough, a mishap was what had occurred that day that he met Skuld at Nekomi Tech. Whereas most people would have just stared and probably laughed at him , she was the one person who showed concern and wanted to help him. You might say it was an accident that brought them to each other.
After getting cleaned up, Sentarou back down on the bench to slip on his roller skates as Skuld rounded a corner from a distance to stop in front of him. She was sporting some bright white skates with extra mechanical parts attached to it.
"These are my special booster speed skates."
"How do they work?"
"Come on! I'll show you."
Sentarou stood up and followed Skuld as she sped off towards a straight pathway nearby. He could not keep up since it seemed she was going at two to three times the speed he was. Sentarou was out of breath after reaching the end of the path just trying to keep up with her.
"(huff)(huff) Wow! How were you going so fast?"
"Oh here! Let me show you." She begins to skate off back towards where they just came from. "All you have to do is accelerate like you usually, then tap the ground with these special sensors to speed up."
"Then how do you slow down or stop?" Sentarou yelled from a distance.
"Press down with the front of the skate like you normally do."
Skuld stopped about halfway up the path and turned around to head back towards Sentarou. As she began to head towards him, she used the accelerator on the skate to speed up. Approaching from less than 100 feet away, she pressed down with her right foot onto the front of her skate to slow down. Unfortunately, she wasn't starting to slow down at all. Instead, she began to accelerate even further
"Huh? Ahhh! Stop! Stop! Look out!"
Sentarou immediately jumped out of the way as Skuld began to speed out of control. After taking a few laps around a small flower garden, she was headed right towards Sentarou once again.
"Aaah!" Sentarou managed to dodge her again as she took another lap around the flower garden.
"Um, uhhh…Is there any way to turn it off?"
"I can't! It's on the bottom! Aaaah!"
Sentarou decided to jump right into Skuld's path as she raced towards him. Looks like the only way to stop it was to catch her. Making a line right towards him, Sentarou prepared himself to withstand the impact and catch her.
"Gotcha!" Within a matter of seconds, Skuld crashed at an angle right into Sentarou, with the resulting impact throwing both of them onto the ground of the garden.
"Ouch! Well, at least that was a soft landing. Ohhh…"
"Are you okay? I'm sorry…maybe I shouldn't have brought them with me."
"It's alright…ugh." Sentarou propped himself up off the ground. "Maybe…it just needs a little work. R-right?"
"Yeah, I guess." Skuld started to look a little bit upset.
"Come on, let's go do something else." Sentarou smiled and helped her up.
As the afternoon was beginning to wind down, Skuld and Sentarou eventually made their way out of the park back into the city. Near one of the downtown shops, Sentarou spotted a photo booth and suggested that they get a photo as a memento of their day together. Skuld was ecstatic at the idea.
"Oh no! It's broken!" Sentarou said in disappointment.
"Wait! Maybe I can fix it! Let's see…" Skuld opened the panel and started working with the connections. After a few minutes, she closed the panel and hit the start button. "Let's try it!"
Skuld and Sentarou positioned themselves in front of the camera as the machine took four snapshots. Hoping that nothing would go wrong this time, they waited patiently as the machine produced 2 sets of 4 pictures of the two of them.
"Hey, it worked!"
"Excuse me, wasn't that broken a second ago?" A man said as he walked towards them.
"Uh, well it was. She just fixed it."
"Oh, really? I haven't been able to get that thing working for weeks. Thank you very much, miss."
"Oh, uh no problem." Skuld responded with a warm smile. At least after what had happened earlier, at least the aquarium tour and this went right.
"Well, can I help you two with anything else?"
"Actually, I was wanting to buy a gift for her."
"Well, let's see. We have these brooches that are very popular right now." The man tells them as he leads them to a nearby display case. "Flowers, hearts, turtles, a star,…"
An angel brooch immediately caught Sentarou's eye. "What about the angel?"
"Oh, a very nice choice."
"I'll take it."
Sentarou and Skuld began to make their way back to the temple after leaving the shop. They could see the sun setting from their window as the streetcar traveled through the city, bringing them back near the temple.
As they entered the temple grounds, both of them stopped at the front porch and looked into the sky to see the night falling upon them.
"Well, I guess this is the end of our day."
"It was a lot of fun….I'm so sorry though about earlier today."
"Oh, it's okay. Those were just accidents."
"I know. I just thought that I knew what I was doing with my inventions."
"Don't be so hard on yourself. Hey, you fixed the photo booth, remember?"
"That's true." Skuld responded.
"Hey, isn't that Banpei?" Sentarou had noticed Banpei walking from around the corner and turned towards them.
"Oh, I forgot! I just put the security protocol back into him this morning, and I wanted to show you."
Banpei immediately started running towards them. However, he didn't seem to be slowing down and crashed into Sentarou with a hard tackle instead.
"H-hey! Banpei! It's me!" Banpei backed off immediately, and proceeded to extend his hand to Sentarou.
"Ouch! Be careful! It's good to see you again, though." He said as he reached out to shake his hand. Without warning, Banpei started shaking Sentarou until producing enough force to him above his head, with Sentarou on the ground onto his back.
"Uh-oh…" Banpei made a beeline right towards Sentarou again, about to attack him.
"Oh no! Banpei stop!"
"Can you override him?"
Skuld pulled out a remote control and started hitting buttons. "I can't! Something's wrong with the security protocol!"
"Wait! Try disabling his optic sensors!" Sentarou yelled as he tried to fight out Banpei.
After hitting a few buttons, Banpei suddenly stopped attacking Sentarou, but ending up flailing around uncontrollably until coming to a complete stop.
"Whew! That was close. Let's take a look at him at least."
A few minutes later:
"It looks like his optic neural circuits are burned out and it got his motion transmitter paths as well. We'll have to rebuild the circuitry…Skuld?"
"This is all my fault. I ruined today and everything we worked so hard for."
"What do you mean? It wasn't your fault. Don't worry about it. We'll just start again tomorrow."
"But it took you so long to do this."
"It's no big deal…really. Um, anyways, did you have fun today?"
"Yeah, I had a good time." Skuld responded but with a depressed tone.
"…Hey, don't worry about Banpei. We can fix him. We'll just start bright and early tomorrow like we always do, right?"
"Right…well, I'll go ahead and take care of Banpei. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Are, you sure?"
"Yeah…"
"Okay…Skuld, I had a wonderful time with you today." He said as he climbed onto his bike.
"Thank you."
Sentarou hesitated to leave, but she kept reassuring him that everything was okay As he slowly rode away to the gate, the pain that had been building inside of her she could no longer contain, bursting into silent tears and sobbing as she sat back down on the porch of the temple. For some reason she had felt that this was her fault, that her mishaps and mistakes were what ruined the perfect day with Sentarou and his hard work.
As she continued to cry, she managed to lift her head up to see Sentarou kneeling down and looking into her eyes.
"Sen..tarou?"
"Skuld…please, don't…" He gathered his courage to finally tell her what he was afraid to say before. Skuld, there's something that I wanted to say to you before, but I wasn't quite sure how." Sentarou smiled. "These past few weeks have been the best ones of my life. Everyday, I look forward to riding through the cherry blossoms just to see you. Skuld…you helped me find a part of my own self that I never knew about. You are the sweetest girl I've ever met, and that's why I really like you." Sentarou reached and held her hand tightly. No matter what happens, you'll never be alone…because you'll always have me."
Skuld flung herself into his arms into a tight embrace, both of them holding that moment endlessly. Keiichi had been watching from nearby, and sighed at this moment that he observed. Keiichi and Megumi's young friend had grown up before their eyes, as so did the young goddess who was starting to know for herself what love was. Around the corner near the porch, Belldandy had witnessed this moment as well and sighed.
"(The love of a young goddess…the first moment that you begin to understand and feel it with the one you love is the most special and closest to your heart)."
The next morning, Skuld was up bright and early as usual. As she started up her computer to get ready for another day's work, she smiled as she knew that like every morning, she would hear the voice of a boy that she always looked forward to seeing each and every day. While standing up, she felt something inside of her pocket near her angel brooch and reached in to find the pictures that they took yesterday. As she attached the pictures to the edge of her computer monitor, she heard the sound of the front door closing and Keiichi greeting him. Skuld got up and ran out the door towards the direction of the voices. The 4 individual shots of the two of them were a memento of their one special summer day together, a day out of all of them, they would always remember.
Writer's notes:
- This chapter was definitely a lot harder to write than the others. Mainly due to the fact that I was trying to give Sentarou a different personality, going more for the really shy boy who starts to open up because of a girl. Honestly, I probably ended up going a little off track with Skuld's personality in this chapter.
- If some sections grammar wise do not make any sense, please reviewers, e-mail me and let me know. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this installment of my Oh My Goddess story set, The Dance in the Stars, a continuation after the events of the OAV and the movie.
- Chapter 9 will probably take less time to do and will probably be up soon. Is there a link to how Mara became a 1st class demon and a man that Urd was in love with? Who is this Marle that supposedly had feelings for him?
- Thank you for everyone who has read and reviewed this story set. I'm really glad you guys have enjoyed it. Please review this more and e-mail me at sp831@hotmail.com.