Title: Flower Garden (A Hana Yori Dango AU)
Author: Yih
1: Starting Out (November 17, 2002)
"That's F4," remarked one student to another.
"F4?" queried the new student, Yuki.
"F4 are the most important people at Eitoku," the other student, Makiko explained. "They were the four families that started this school: the one with the curly hair is Doumyouji Tsukasa, the one with the long hair is Mimasaka Akira, the one next to him is Nishikado Soujirou, and the one trailing behind is Hanazawa Rui. Be careful not to annoy them, if they tag you, you're as good as dead to this school."
"Whose that girl with them?"
"That girl is Makino Tsukushi, she's always hanging around the F4, she's a childhood playmate of theirs. When Toudou Shizuka use to go to this school, those two were the only girls that were ever allowed to sit near them. You have to realize how jealous the other school girls are of them. Not only are Tsukushi and Shizuka rich and good-looking, they also are best friends with the F4! Also rumor has it that Tsukushi has an arranged marriage with one of the F4."
"Really?" Yuki exclaimed. "Which one?"
Makiko shrugged. "I have no idea, it's just a rumor. But I bet it's true too."
"That..." Yuki began, but she couldn't finish because Makiko had grabbed her by the arm was pointing toward where the F4 were standing, where a very angry Tsukasa was glaring down at a girl called Sakurako, who had just run into him by accident while she was turning a corner.
"You stupid girl!" Tsukasa exclaimed. "Watch where you're going!" He was about to push her aside when Tsukushi grabbed his hand.
"Tsukasa," she warned, "don't you dare."
He fixed his gaze on Tsukushi and shrugged. "Fine." He glared once more, menacingly at Sakurako. "Watch where you're going next time you stupid klutz." He then brushed pass the girl and continued walking, the rest following behind him.
"Wow," Yuki murmured.
"That's what I mean. Don't get on their bad side," Makiko warned. "It's just altogether bad news. Tsukushi's nice enough, but even she can't stop Tsukasa all the time. And the rest of the F4 could care less what Tsukasa does, only Tsukushi and Shizuka care. Just watch where you go."
"I will."
~
"Why did you stop me?" Tsukasa asked.
"She apologized," Tsukushi explained. "You've got to learn to show some mercy now and then. Besides, you know I don't like it when you do that."
"You're always telling me what to do just like my older sister!" he cried out with frustration. The rest of the F4 just smiled, Tsukushi was exactly like his sister Tsubaki.
"Someone has to tell you what to do now that she's in New York," she retorted. Tsukasa stared down at Tsukushi, trying to intimate her, but not succeeding. Instead, it only made Tsukushi laugh hard and she had to lean on Rui for support. "You know, you keep trying that glower at me and it never works."
"TSUKUSHI!" cried out the ever familiar voice of Kazuya. "Where have you been all summer? I've been looking for everywhere!"
All the F4 grimaced and Tsukasa pushed Kazuya away from Tsukushi. "Why don't you leave her alone, Kazuya? Can't you tell that she has better things to do than to hang around you?"
Kazuya glanced at Tsukushi with his big puppy eyes. "Is that true?"
If there was one thing that did annoy all the F4 about Tsukushi was that she was far too nice for her own good. "Of course not," she responded, "Tsukasa is just being rude like he's inclined to be. I was in Europe all summer with F4. I didn't get back until yesterday."
"I see," Kazuya said dejectedly.
"I'll call you sometime and we can hang out, okay?" Tsukushi remarked. Kazuya immediately brightened up and grinned like a silly fool, then proceeded to make his way to his classes, waving goodbye to Tsukushi and F4.
"Why are you so nice to him?" Akira asked.
"He's quite irritating," Soujirou agreed with Akira's unspoken, though between the lines comment.
"He's a really nice boy, if a bit over energized," she responded. "Besides, my life is not about always hanging around you guys."
"Oh, but it is," Soujirou said teasingly.
"Oh, but it isn't," she replied back with an exaggerated disappointment that it wasn't as Soujirou had said.
Akira snickered. "Of course, your life revolves around us. What would F4 be without Makino Tsukushi? You and Shizuka are definitely a very important part of our lifestyle."
"I know that Shizuka is for you," she responded with a knowing wink, which caused Akira to blush as she planned. "But I will admit that you guys do hold a special place in my life."
"We better," Tsukasa commented, wrapping his arm around Tsukushi's waist.
Rui had been watching this exchanged and it always disturbed him that he was jealous watching his closest friends interacting with his best friend. But he was envious that they all could act with such a familiarity with her in public when he couldn't. He just wasn't like that when other people were watching. And he certainly didn't like to see Tsukasa's arm around Tsukushi's waist. Not being able to stand it anymore, he started to walk away so he didn't have to see it.
"Rui!" Tsukushi cried out. "Where are you going?"
He didn't even bother to answer her. He was too disturbed to respond to her when he normally would. He needed to be alone, and there was only one place in the school that he could truly be alone and think. So he started walking faster before she could persuade him to come back. Tsukushi was always able to do that, always able to reach him when he wanted to be left alone. She'd been the one that had made him crawl out from his shell. And it wasn't that he didn't want that, it was just that he was selfish and wanted her to pay attention only to him.
"He's in one of those moods," Soujirou commented.
"Looks like it," Akira agreed.
"You'd better go after him," Soujirou remarked.
"I know," she responded. She wondered what was up with him this time. He was very moody nowadays. It was almost like when he was a little kid. But she knew precisely where to find him. "I'll meet you guys later okay?"
"Yeah, just hurry up," Tsukasa shouted, since Tsukushi was already running down the hallway after Rui. "Don't take all day talking with him like you're always doing!" It was well enough that Akira and Soujirou were there, but without Tsukushi, things quickly got boring for him. Somehow, Tsukushi always made everything interesting. Other than Tsubaki, Tsukushi was the only other female who he actually listened to what they were saying instead of letting it go in one ear and out the other.
~
F4 first met Tsukushi in elementary school when they were at the playground because she was hanging out in the best part of the playground, the exclusive spot that they hung out on. Tsukasa had walked up to her and yelled at her, "Get off those bars! Those are for the F4!"
"Who says?" she retorted.
"I say!" he yelled back.
"So!"
"Get off!" he shouted even louder.
"No!"
"Get off now!" he screamed.
She stuck her tongue out and that was when Tsukasa pulled her by the leg off of the monkey bars. Of course, Tsukushi was two years younger than them. She was precisely 7 years old and so she tumbled off the bars because of his superior strength, which caused her to fall onto the ground. She would have been severely hurt, but Rui, who had been standing there watching the argument had taken a fascination with the little pixie child and had half caught her and half fell down trying to catch her.
"Ouch!" cried the little girl Tsukushi. "That hurt." She glanced down and saw that she was sitting on top of a boy. She quickly scampered off of him and reached down with her hand to help him up. "Sorry for landing on you. But thanks for helping me! I'm Tsukushi!"
Rui looked at her hand before taking it. She pulled him up, rather she tried to pull him up; he got up on his own accord. He stared down at her; she was beaming at him. "Did you hear me?" she asked. "I'm Tsukushi. Who are you?"
He blinked. "Hanazawa Rui."
"You're much nicer than that curly hair boy over there!" she exclaimed. "Bye Rui!" She waved at him before running toward her teacher, who was calling in the class.
Tsukasa just grumbled and sat down on the ground. "Why did you help that little brat, Rui?"
Rui shrugged and swung up on the monkey bars, hanging upside down like Shizuka had told him when he wanted to cry. He didn't want to cry, but he did want to think. For him it was the same, to cry or to think. So he hung upside down and thought. He liked that little girl, Tsukushi. She was very alive, very emotional as well. She was very different from him.
~
Staring at the bright blue sky, he sighed and bent his head down to rest on his knees. This was the only place that he could at least hear some silence now and then when there wasn't a rustling noise happening in another part of the school that echoed over to where he was. He didn't know why he got this feeling, this jealous feeling so intensely now. It'd always been there, even when they were still in elementary, but it hadn't been that bad until recently. Now, it was bad.
Maybe it was because he got less time to spend with Tsukushi alone. It wasn't necessarily that they didn't talk to each other, but it was because they didn't have enough time to spend together in companionable silence now that Tsukushi had so many other things to do other than to keep him company. And when he did have a chance to be with Tsukushi, Tsukasa and Soujirou and Akira were always dragging her away and she ended up dragging him along with her to bar after bar, club after club. He didn't mind going, it was just he didn't want to go when he had a chance to be alone with Tsukushi.
"I thought you'd be here," Tsukushi remarked. "Why did you run off like that Rui?"
He lifted his head up from his lap and stared at her, beyond please that she'd come. He didn't say anything only tilted his head to the side, a signal for her to sit next to him. And sit next to him she did. After she sat next to him, she stared at him briefly before looking out at the sky like he'd been doing for the past few minutes. She didn't say anything for a while and neither did he. They just sat together like they had when they were little kids.
~
"Do you always come to this corner when it's playtime?" Tsukushi asked. He nodded. "Can I sit down?" He nodded again. She sat down next to him and looked up at the sky like he was doing. "It's a really pretty day." He nodded in agreement. "You don't talk much do you?" He shrugged. "That's okay," she exclaimed. "Sometimes quiet time is nice."
He had turned his head to stare at her, having a strange feeling about this little girl. No one had ever said to him before that they actually liked silence before. Even Shizuka didn't understand why he like to have peace and quiet. But this little girl understood? That was amazing and yet, the more he stared at her, the more he saw that she wasn't all there. She was thinking about something else. "What are you thinking about?" he asked. He had to ask a second time before he caught her attention.
"Oh, I was looking at that bird over there," Tsukushi told him, pointing to it. "I like to make up stories in my mind about the things that I see. I get pretty lost in my dreams sometimes. That's why I got mad at your friend when he was trying to get me off the monkey bars. I was dreaming and he bothered me, so I got upset."
"It's okay, he upsets most people. He's very noisy," Rui responded. "But he's a pretty good friend once you get to know him. The only one that has any control over what he does is his older sister, Tsubaki."
"I think you'd make a good friend," she said. "So do you want to be friends?"
He glanced at the little girl, the cute little girl that he liked when he first saw her arguing with Tsukasa for some reason. "Yes," he answered, "I do."
~
"I know you're upset," Tsukushi said, breaking the silence. "You're upset with me, aren't you?"
He was and he wasn't. He was more upset with himself that he was getting upset. It wasn't like Tsukushi wasn't good friends with the rest of the F4 as well as him. Between the five of them, they were a very close knit group of friends. The only person that was missing was Shizuka. It was because of Tsukushi he was feeling this way and it was because of how the other F4 acted and it was because he was selfish and he wanted Tsukushi's full attention.
"You're in one of those moods again," she commented. "If you aren't going to tell me why you're upset, I'm going to leave because there are things that I have to do."
She stood up and was about to move when he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back down. "Don't go."
She glanced down at him, half standing, half sitting- crouching. "What's the matter, Rui?"
"I miss not having you here to just sit with me," he explained. "I miss not being able to talk to you like we use to."
She understood. There hadn't been much time recently for her to just sit with him and to talk with him like they'd done for the longest time. She'd missed it as well, but she hadn't known Rui had missed it. Sometimes, even she couldn't tell what went in his mind, though she knew he could read her better than anyone. He was adept at reading anyone well, but especially her. She smiled and kissed his forehead. "Silly boy," she muttered, "why didn't you tell me that?"
Author: Yih
1: Starting Out (November 17, 2002)
"That's F4," remarked one student to another.
"F4?" queried the new student, Yuki.
"F4 are the most important people at Eitoku," the other student, Makiko explained. "They were the four families that started this school: the one with the curly hair is Doumyouji Tsukasa, the one with the long hair is Mimasaka Akira, the one next to him is Nishikado Soujirou, and the one trailing behind is Hanazawa Rui. Be careful not to annoy them, if they tag you, you're as good as dead to this school."
"Whose that girl with them?"
"That girl is Makino Tsukushi, she's always hanging around the F4, she's a childhood playmate of theirs. When Toudou Shizuka use to go to this school, those two were the only girls that were ever allowed to sit near them. You have to realize how jealous the other school girls are of them. Not only are Tsukushi and Shizuka rich and good-looking, they also are best friends with the F4! Also rumor has it that Tsukushi has an arranged marriage with one of the F4."
"Really?" Yuki exclaimed. "Which one?"
Makiko shrugged. "I have no idea, it's just a rumor. But I bet it's true too."
"That..." Yuki began, but she couldn't finish because Makiko had grabbed her by the arm was pointing toward where the F4 were standing, where a very angry Tsukasa was glaring down at a girl called Sakurako, who had just run into him by accident while she was turning a corner.
"You stupid girl!" Tsukasa exclaimed. "Watch where you're going!" He was about to push her aside when Tsukushi grabbed his hand.
"Tsukasa," she warned, "don't you dare."
He fixed his gaze on Tsukushi and shrugged. "Fine." He glared once more, menacingly at Sakurako. "Watch where you're going next time you stupid klutz." He then brushed pass the girl and continued walking, the rest following behind him.
"Wow," Yuki murmured.
"That's what I mean. Don't get on their bad side," Makiko warned. "It's just altogether bad news. Tsukushi's nice enough, but even she can't stop Tsukasa all the time. And the rest of the F4 could care less what Tsukasa does, only Tsukushi and Shizuka care. Just watch where you go."
"I will."
~
"Why did you stop me?" Tsukasa asked.
"She apologized," Tsukushi explained. "You've got to learn to show some mercy now and then. Besides, you know I don't like it when you do that."
"You're always telling me what to do just like my older sister!" he cried out with frustration. The rest of the F4 just smiled, Tsukushi was exactly like his sister Tsubaki.
"Someone has to tell you what to do now that she's in New York," she retorted. Tsukasa stared down at Tsukushi, trying to intimate her, but not succeeding. Instead, it only made Tsukushi laugh hard and she had to lean on Rui for support. "You know, you keep trying that glower at me and it never works."
"TSUKUSHI!" cried out the ever familiar voice of Kazuya. "Where have you been all summer? I've been looking for everywhere!"
All the F4 grimaced and Tsukasa pushed Kazuya away from Tsukushi. "Why don't you leave her alone, Kazuya? Can't you tell that she has better things to do than to hang around you?"
Kazuya glanced at Tsukushi with his big puppy eyes. "Is that true?"
If there was one thing that did annoy all the F4 about Tsukushi was that she was far too nice for her own good. "Of course not," she responded, "Tsukasa is just being rude like he's inclined to be. I was in Europe all summer with F4. I didn't get back until yesterday."
"I see," Kazuya said dejectedly.
"I'll call you sometime and we can hang out, okay?" Tsukushi remarked. Kazuya immediately brightened up and grinned like a silly fool, then proceeded to make his way to his classes, waving goodbye to Tsukushi and F4.
"Why are you so nice to him?" Akira asked.
"He's quite irritating," Soujirou agreed with Akira's unspoken, though between the lines comment.
"He's a really nice boy, if a bit over energized," she responded. "Besides, my life is not about always hanging around you guys."
"Oh, but it is," Soujirou said teasingly.
"Oh, but it isn't," she replied back with an exaggerated disappointment that it wasn't as Soujirou had said.
Akira snickered. "Of course, your life revolves around us. What would F4 be without Makino Tsukushi? You and Shizuka are definitely a very important part of our lifestyle."
"I know that Shizuka is for you," she responded with a knowing wink, which caused Akira to blush as she planned. "But I will admit that you guys do hold a special place in my life."
"We better," Tsukasa commented, wrapping his arm around Tsukushi's waist.
Rui had been watching this exchanged and it always disturbed him that he was jealous watching his closest friends interacting with his best friend. But he was envious that they all could act with such a familiarity with her in public when he couldn't. He just wasn't like that when other people were watching. And he certainly didn't like to see Tsukasa's arm around Tsukushi's waist. Not being able to stand it anymore, he started to walk away so he didn't have to see it.
"Rui!" Tsukushi cried out. "Where are you going?"
He didn't even bother to answer her. He was too disturbed to respond to her when he normally would. He needed to be alone, and there was only one place in the school that he could truly be alone and think. So he started walking faster before she could persuade him to come back. Tsukushi was always able to do that, always able to reach him when he wanted to be left alone. She'd been the one that had made him crawl out from his shell. And it wasn't that he didn't want that, it was just that he was selfish and wanted her to pay attention only to him.
"He's in one of those moods," Soujirou commented.
"Looks like it," Akira agreed.
"You'd better go after him," Soujirou remarked.
"I know," she responded. She wondered what was up with him this time. He was very moody nowadays. It was almost like when he was a little kid. But she knew precisely where to find him. "I'll meet you guys later okay?"
"Yeah, just hurry up," Tsukasa shouted, since Tsukushi was already running down the hallway after Rui. "Don't take all day talking with him like you're always doing!" It was well enough that Akira and Soujirou were there, but without Tsukushi, things quickly got boring for him. Somehow, Tsukushi always made everything interesting. Other than Tsubaki, Tsukushi was the only other female who he actually listened to what they were saying instead of letting it go in one ear and out the other.
~
F4 first met Tsukushi in elementary school when they were at the playground because she was hanging out in the best part of the playground, the exclusive spot that they hung out on. Tsukasa had walked up to her and yelled at her, "Get off those bars! Those are for the F4!"
"Who says?" she retorted.
"I say!" he yelled back.
"So!"
"Get off!" he shouted even louder.
"No!"
"Get off now!" he screamed.
She stuck her tongue out and that was when Tsukasa pulled her by the leg off of the monkey bars. Of course, Tsukushi was two years younger than them. She was precisely 7 years old and so she tumbled off the bars because of his superior strength, which caused her to fall onto the ground. She would have been severely hurt, but Rui, who had been standing there watching the argument had taken a fascination with the little pixie child and had half caught her and half fell down trying to catch her.
"Ouch!" cried the little girl Tsukushi. "That hurt." She glanced down and saw that she was sitting on top of a boy. She quickly scampered off of him and reached down with her hand to help him up. "Sorry for landing on you. But thanks for helping me! I'm Tsukushi!"
Rui looked at her hand before taking it. She pulled him up, rather she tried to pull him up; he got up on his own accord. He stared down at her; she was beaming at him. "Did you hear me?" she asked. "I'm Tsukushi. Who are you?"
He blinked. "Hanazawa Rui."
"You're much nicer than that curly hair boy over there!" she exclaimed. "Bye Rui!" She waved at him before running toward her teacher, who was calling in the class.
Tsukasa just grumbled and sat down on the ground. "Why did you help that little brat, Rui?"
Rui shrugged and swung up on the monkey bars, hanging upside down like Shizuka had told him when he wanted to cry. He didn't want to cry, but he did want to think. For him it was the same, to cry or to think. So he hung upside down and thought. He liked that little girl, Tsukushi. She was very alive, very emotional as well. She was very different from him.
~
Staring at the bright blue sky, he sighed and bent his head down to rest on his knees. This was the only place that he could at least hear some silence now and then when there wasn't a rustling noise happening in another part of the school that echoed over to where he was. He didn't know why he got this feeling, this jealous feeling so intensely now. It'd always been there, even when they were still in elementary, but it hadn't been that bad until recently. Now, it was bad.
Maybe it was because he got less time to spend with Tsukushi alone. It wasn't necessarily that they didn't talk to each other, but it was because they didn't have enough time to spend together in companionable silence now that Tsukushi had so many other things to do other than to keep him company. And when he did have a chance to be with Tsukushi, Tsukasa and Soujirou and Akira were always dragging her away and she ended up dragging him along with her to bar after bar, club after club. He didn't mind going, it was just he didn't want to go when he had a chance to be alone with Tsukushi.
"I thought you'd be here," Tsukushi remarked. "Why did you run off like that Rui?"
He lifted his head up from his lap and stared at her, beyond please that she'd come. He didn't say anything only tilted his head to the side, a signal for her to sit next to him. And sit next to him she did. After she sat next to him, she stared at him briefly before looking out at the sky like he'd been doing for the past few minutes. She didn't say anything for a while and neither did he. They just sat together like they had when they were little kids.
~
"Do you always come to this corner when it's playtime?" Tsukushi asked. He nodded. "Can I sit down?" He nodded again. She sat down next to him and looked up at the sky like he was doing. "It's a really pretty day." He nodded in agreement. "You don't talk much do you?" He shrugged. "That's okay," she exclaimed. "Sometimes quiet time is nice."
He had turned his head to stare at her, having a strange feeling about this little girl. No one had ever said to him before that they actually liked silence before. Even Shizuka didn't understand why he like to have peace and quiet. But this little girl understood? That was amazing and yet, the more he stared at her, the more he saw that she wasn't all there. She was thinking about something else. "What are you thinking about?" he asked. He had to ask a second time before he caught her attention.
"Oh, I was looking at that bird over there," Tsukushi told him, pointing to it. "I like to make up stories in my mind about the things that I see. I get pretty lost in my dreams sometimes. That's why I got mad at your friend when he was trying to get me off the monkey bars. I was dreaming and he bothered me, so I got upset."
"It's okay, he upsets most people. He's very noisy," Rui responded. "But he's a pretty good friend once you get to know him. The only one that has any control over what he does is his older sister, Tsubaki."
"I think you'd make a good friend," she said. "So do you want to be friends?"
He glanced at the little girl, the cute little girl that he liked when he first saw her arguing with Tsukasa for some reason. "Yes," he answered, "I do."
~
"I know you're upset," Tsukushi said, breaking the silence. "You're upset with me, aren't you?"
He was and he wasn't. He was more upset with himself that he was getting upset. It wasn't like Tsukushi wasn't good friends with the rest of the F4 as well as him. Between the five of them, they were a very close knit group of friends. The only person that was missing was Shizuka. It was because of Tsukushi he was feeling this way and it was because of how the other F4 acted and it was because he was selfish and he wanted Tsukushi's full attention.
"You're in one of those moods again," she commented. "If you aren't going to tell me why you're upset, I'm going to leave because there are things that I have to do."
She stood up and was about to move when he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back down. "Don't go."
She glanced down at him, half standing, half sitting- crouching. "What's the matter, Rui?"
"I miss not having you here to just sit with me," he explained. "I miss not being able to talk to you like we use to."
She understood. There hadn't been much time recently for her to just sit with him and to talk with him like they'd done for the longest time. She'd missed it as well, but she hadn't known Rui had missed it. Sometimes, even she couldn't tell what went in his mind, though she knew he could read her better than anyone. He was adept at reading anyone well, but especially her. She smiled and kissed his forehead. "Silly boy," she muttered, "why didn't you tell me that?"