Nijuusei
By Kaen
Chapter 14: Snow
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I know, I'm horrible… It's been over a month . I'm so sorry… *sobs* Please accept this chapter as an apology! I was so sick yesterday, and I began pondering when was the last time that I updated my very first ffn story. Quite some time, I realized, so here it goes! Sorry!! *hides in shame*
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"It's getting so cold!" Yui commented, clinging on to Hiashi's arm the second he opened the door from the restaurant.
Hiashi silently nodded his head in agreement, already feeling the chill seep through his jacket. His cheeks were tinted pink within the slight amount of time it took to get back to the car and he noticed that his breaths were coming in puffs of white smoke. Despite the cold, however, Hiashi still remained ever the gentleman and unlocked Yui's door first, holding it open for her as she dashed inside, more than willing to be out of the cold. Shutting the door briskly behind her to seal off the cold wind, Hiashi made his brief voyage to the other side of the car, almost slipping on one of the early-forming ice patches. Yanking open the driver's side door for himself, Hiashi all but dove into the vehicle, his teeth chattering as he realized that his windbreaker wasn't nearly enough to conquer the cold day.
Yui and Hiashi remained silent for a minute prior to getting into the car, both trying to warm up.
Finally, he allowed himself a boyish grin and stated the obvious: "It's gotten rather cold, don't you think?"
"I think it's safe to say," Yui agreed, returning the infectious smile.
Her hands ran up and down her covered arms, sparking a bit of warmth into them. Hiashi looked at her thoughtfully through the corner of his eyes, his mind quickly determining what would be the best course of action to keep their first date… running smoothly. He chewed his lower lip unconsciously and his eyebrows rose slightly as he came up with an idea.
"Since it's getting so chilly out, why don't we just stop at one place and then head back home? Maybe some hot chocolate would be nice then," he suggested, it being particularly obvious that he didn't like the cold of the city.
"Just one stop? Where?" she asked him, her delicate features forming a look of disappointment.
But he just smiled reassuringly at her and reached over, grasping her gloved hand and holding to his lips.
"You'll just have to see when we get there, my lady, but I can promise that I'll be worth your time."
With this, he placed a lightly kiss on her knuckles, then released her, and slid the key into the ignition of the car.
"But where are we going?" Yui pouted, crossing her arms.
Hiashi allowed the roar of the engine to answer for him as he himself remained teasingly silent.
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"Gah! I'm so bored!" Kokuei cried to the empty apartment, falling on his back onto the sofa.
The small circles he had been making around it had made him dizzy by the thirtieth round or so, so he waited patiently on the couch for the room to stop spinning. When it did so, however, Kokuei found himself even more bored than before since the thrill of being unstable had worn off. He pondered whether he should get up or not, laziness eventually conquering the battle, so there he remained, flopped on his back as unfocused midnight-blue eyes roamed the chalk-white ceiling for anything of interest. There was nothing interesting on the ceiling, though, not even a crack. He sighed heavily, a hand latching onto the back of the couch as he pulled himself up into a sitting position.
In the kitchen, the steady tick of a mechanical clock could be heard. Kokuei listened to it for a while, briefly wondering why he'd never noticed it before. It was after a short while that he decided he didn't like the pressing rhythm, finding the repetitive "tick-tock, tick-tock" to be rather grating on one's nerves. Unconsciously growling at the noisy clock, Kokuei lifted himself off of his sofa-bed contraption and went back to wandering around the unbearably small apartment.
'But why wouldn't it be small?' Kokuei reminded himself. "It wasn't like Yui was expecting some guy to move in with her. I'm lucky to even have a place to live right now. I mean, I could still be… outside."
Moving over to the window, Kokuei's warm fingertips met with the chilled glass, making small white crowns for each finger on the glass. He didn't pay it any heed, though. What he was more concerned about was the fact that his Yui was still out somewhere, in that big and gray city, as the first snowflakes began to flutter to the earth. The longer he watched the sky, the more snowflakes joined their predecessors, and soon the entire sky was a flurried dance of white crystals. The glass reflected an image of a lonely young man, worry causing his forehead to crease and his eyes to widen. In their depths was an almost betrayed look that hinted more towards helplessness. The quiet of the moment lay heavily over the small apartment, so heavy that one might consider it a sin to shatter it.
Evidently, the alarm clock didn't think so as it let off a shrill and continuous buzz, causing Kokuei to jump in surprise and then grit his teeth in pain. Damn, that thing was loud! Narrowing his eyes in determination, Kokuei approached the room where the offensive item for happily annoying all who could hear it. Side-stepping an unmade bed, he reached the small table beside and looking warily at the screeching object. Along one side of it ran several buttons, and on the other, several knobs. On the top of the device where even more buttons, which Kokuei grudgingly noted, feeling his heart sinking. What if he couldn't turn the damn thing off? It would be a disaster! The end of the world or his sanity, whichever came first.
Moving to pure trial and error, Kokuei sat on the bed along side the clock and began pushing the numerous buttons, once in a while pausing to tweak a knob or shake it threateningly. Minutes of unsuccessful tests passed and he could feel his patience waning. Two buttons later, Kokuei's eyes found themselves following the black cord that ran from the back of the clock to someplace behind the table. He laid down on his stomach as he reached behind the nightstand, fingers sliding over the electrical cord and finally succeeding in gripping the plug. With a final glare directed to his inanimate enemy, Kokuei yanked the plug from the wall and all fell silent. He breathed a sigh of relief, releasing the cord the rolling onto his back as he sprawled out on the comfortable bed.
Wait a minute… bed? Bed!
He shot up, scrambling off of Yui's bed as his brain kicked into action and he realized that not only had he been in Yui's room, but also on her bed. He hid in the corner adjacent to the tall dresser, ramming the wooden storage compartment on accident and causing something to fall from above, hitting his squarely on the top of his head.
He yelped, hurriedly scurrying away from the scene and found himself once again cowered before the girl's bed. Blushing furiously, he peered out from behind a blanket that had been kicked off the bed and was still barely hanging on to the mattress. Silence once again enveloped the room, and on the floor there rested a large framed picture with a smaller card now sticking out of the side from underneath. Curiosity got the better of him and he crawled forward to the item that he had displaced, picking it up cautiously and turning it over, causing the card to sail to the ground. He ignored it for now, his wide eyes taking in the framed photograph before him.
In it, there were three people: one woman, a man, and a young girl. They all wore formal attire, it being very obvious that the photo was a planned shoot. Strangely enough, in the photo they all seemed to be happy, smiling brightly at the camera while keeping a reassuring hold on another person in the picture. The woman, presumably the mother, had an arm rested around the young girl's- of about seven or so- waist, while her husband had a hand on her shoulder. The girl, Kokuei noted, was unmistakably a younger and very cute Yui, while the woman whose lap she sat in was probably her mom. Briefly, Kokuei wondered if that was Yui's father on the right of the picture, however. He really didn't look anything like his daughter; it was apparent that the girl had inherited all of her physical traits from her mother.
Finally taking note of the card that fell, which was about the size of a baseball card, the curious young man reached over and picked it up, turning it over in his hand. On the front of it was a colorful picture of some angels and then and cross, surrounded in golden light. Kokuei's eyebrows knitted together and he turned the card over to the other, less colorful side. On it, there was only some printing with two crosses on either side of the first line. Sensing something tragic, but not being able to decipher precisely what, Kokuei numbly lifted the picture from its resting place in the basket made by his crossed legs and tucked the card into the bottom of the frame again, raising himself up to be able to place the picture back on the dresser.
He was slightly surprised to see so many other famed pictures, plain photos, and several other trinkets laid out on the dresser top. His eyes roamed over each one, moving from one happy or silly face to the next and carefully taking in each unique little treasure that adorned the flat wooden surface. He slowly returned the framed picture that had crashed down on him minutes before carefully to its proper spot, his eyes taking in a smaller picture of Yui, with shorter hair, with another girl about her own age with brown hair and green eyes. He barely noticed that the frame if the larger picture had hooked onto something bluish-green as he set it down, causing the thing to slide across the smooth surface and fall limply onto the floor. Tearing his eyes away from the interesting picture, Kokuei sighed in exasperation as he noted that he had caused yet item to topple of the high clothes cabinet.
Steady fingers coiled around the soft thing and it bunched under the pressure of his hand. He held it at eye-level, entranced by the simple bow. Before his wide eyes, he could have sworn that he saw his arm's adornments change from his green sweater to some sort of yellow wrap, and then back to the sweater. But in that brief vision, it wasn't just his clothing that changed. He could feel the breeze of some unknown wind that swept hair into his eyes, could smell the cold, brisk air, and when he looked up, he saw a frozen wasteland.
'Where… am I? I'm cold... Why does this feel so… familiar?'
But in the uncertain blink of an eye, the vision vanished, and Kokuei's eyes snapped back into focus. He awakened to realize that he was on all fours, his hand still tightly clutching the uniform bow. Bead of perspiration were evident on his brow, even while his teeth chattered together in effort to warm his body. It was as if he couldn't decide if he was overheated or freezing. Not wanting to risk any movement, Kokuei stayed in his crouched position and he panted heavily, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
'What was that?!' he demanded to know of no one; there was no one to ask.
'Déjà vu…' he told himself- it was that and nothing more. Just a strange dream, right? So why was he so saddened by it? And why did his body respond so violently? Unconsciously, his grip relaxed on the ribbon and it remained on the floor when he lifted his hands from it.
"I'm scared," he confessed to himself meekly, wrapping his arms around himself since he had decided that he was too cold.
His eyes teared up behind tightly shut eyelids, but that didn't stop them from streaming down his face, leaving dirty streaks. But he forced his eyes to crack open, focusing their blurry gaze to rest on the blue-green item. He stared at it, it once again captivating him and causing him to fall silent and make even his air come and go in inaudible light breaths.
Clearing his throat loudly, Kokuei abruptly pushed himself up off the floor, relaxing his arms around himself and fleeing the room. He gave no thought to the fact that the seemingly simple school ribbon had had such a frightening effect on him was still crumpled on the floor. Reason kicked back in and it told Kokuei that he was freezing and that his face was dirty. Stopping in the bathroom to catch a glimpse of his own reflection, he was disappointed to see that he looked even more pathetic than usual, even in his new clothing. His eyes were rimmed in bright red while gray streaks ran from each eye to his jaw. His hair was ruffled and sticking up strangely in some places, since he hadn't taken the time to comb it yet and even the way that Kokuei's clothing hung on him made him look small and fragile.
Bleary reddened eyes traveled from the mirror to the inviting shower. Kokuei smiled in relief at the solution that presented itself and he crossed the small bathroom, fidgeting with the settings until he got the water to come out of where it was supposed to and to about right temperature. Stripping out of his new clothes, which he decided to still wear afterwards, Kokuei stepped into the shower and willed the water to carry away all the remnants of the strange dream away with the water that flowed away from his tense body.
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It was endless, absolutely endless. You could see everything in the city, everything beyond it, and above it, you could see each white crystal that floated softly to the earth. It was as if a blanket was being woven for the earth from heaven, one stitch at a time that were all soon joined by countless other stitches that painted the sky a shimmering white. And there was no hurry in this pattern; just an almost lethargic feel to the entire atmosphere. The snow fell so softly that it placed sparking jewels in the hair and on the clothing of all who witnessed its gentle journey.
It captivated her and left her breathless, exposing her open soul to the light snow and allowing it to become one with it. Unconsciously, a small smile graced her pretty face and there was a blissful sparkle in her cerulean-blue eyes.
"Do you like it up here?" Hiashi asked warmly, shyly taking her hand in his own.
She sighed in response, leaning in closer to Hiashi and wrapping an arm loosely around his waist. They watched the snow fall together, silently enjoying each other's company.
"It's beautiful," she breathed, breaking the embrace to get closer to the rail.
Although there were strong black steel bars creating a safety barrier on the top of the famous building, they were still widely enough spaced to give the spectator an awe-inspiring view. Dusting off some of the snow that had settled on the step with her foot, Yui then climbed onto it and gazed out onto the city as Hiashi watched her. He was enjoying the soft silence around him more than anything, though. They were so far above the crowded and noisy city streets and the snow muted all of the other noises. There were no other tourists on the top of the Empire State Building, so the only noises heard were the occasional soft breezes that whistled through the maze made by the tall structures.
Yui, content with her view of the city now, turned away from the edge and stepped down, causing the fresh snow to pack under her small feet as she made her way back to Hiashi.
Wrapping her arms around his mid-section again, she leaned her cheek against his shoulder and said, "It's absolutely gorgeous. Thank you for taking me here."
Hiashi had already returned her grateful hug, one hand resting on her back while the other softly dusted some of the snowflakes out of her hair.
"You're welcome," he replied in a quiet voice, feeling somewhat awkward about having responded to something the way that he did since he was enjoying it so much as well. In honesty, this was probably the first moment of peace that he'd had since he moved to this bustling city.
It wasn't just the moment that he was enjoying, though. The embrace that he shared with Yui gave him a warmth beyond just body heat. It seemed to radiate from his heart, or maybe his just his very being. There was something that unmistakably called out for the girl from his soul. It was a feeling unlike any other, and Hiashi had no fear of it. In fact, he welcomed it with open arms as he tightly held the girl within them.
Before he even realized what he was doing, Hiashi had pulled away slightly from Yui and the hand that had been stroking her hair slid down to lightly cup the left side of her face., causing a rosy flush to appear on her face. He gazed deeply into her eyes, which were reflecting as many emotions as his probably were; different feelings of love, hurt, and hope. And as if he could find the answers to all the questions that were rapidly forming in his mind, Hiashi leaned in close to her and placed a feather-light kiss on her pink lips. Yui welcomed the kiss, exhaling happily and bringing her arms to wrap around his neck, as his own circled her back tighter.
All around them, the soft blanket of snow grew thicker, giving the world solitude of silence and grace, and, just for that moment, the busy world took a break and indulged in the joy of two young lovers, sharing their first token of affection.
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*sighs* I like that ending… For this chapter, that is! You didn't really think that story was ending here, did you? Well, I have been among the living-impaired recently, haven't I? Gah, too busy, too stressed. I gotta get some bug letters yelling at me to update this story, okay? If you're less assertive about getting new chapters though, reviews would be absolutely lovely, yes… ^^& Once again, sorry that I made you wait so long for this chapter! You can yell at me if you want because I really deserve it! O.o But if you can find it in your heart t give nice reviews, I'd truly love you forever! Anyway, thank you for reading!
-Lazy, Bad Kaen
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