Title: Flower Garden (A Hana Yori Dango AU)
Author: Yih
Author Note: Thank you so much for your support! Please keep reviewing! There's a more important note at the end of the chapter. Please read it!
10: Fateful Events (December 24, 2002 to December 28, 2002)
She sat there stunned. Actually, she was more than stunned, she felt she was petrified there. She didn't know how she was suppose to respond. She really shouldn't have been surprised as she was. After all, hadn't her own parents just arranged an arranged marriage for her? But of all people for an arranged marriage to happen to, the last person in her mind that it'd happen to was Tsukasa. She just didn't see him submitting to that at all. It wasn't like him. It wasn't like him at all.
"Say something Tsukushi," Tsukasa urged, having an utterly adorable expression on his face if she had even glanced at him. But ever since he had told her that he was engaged to an Ookawahara Shigeru, the name was vaguely familiar as it had to be. She didn't see Doumyouji Kaede engaging her son to anyone but a high socialite, and a socialite of equal rank. "Tsukushi! Did you even hear what I said?"
She finally nodded when he grabbed her by the arms and started shaking her. He only let go after Tsubaki hit him on the head. "What do you think you're doing? Didn't you see she nodded at you? She heard what you said!" his sister shouted at him.
Tsubaki's voice brought Tsukushi back into reality. It wasn't that she was upset, she just didn't see the arrangement fitting with Tsukasa's personality at all. She didn't really see it fitting with Rui, as passive as he was. She sighed and hoped that Rui wouldn't remain mad at her for too long, she hadn't meant to hurt him. Didn't he see that it was for the best? If they're arranged marriage went wrong, they could end up hating each other and she couldn't stand the thought of hating her best friend.
"I'm starving," Tsukasa declared, "let's go eat. Come on, Tsukushi." He grabbed her hand and dragged her with him to the dining room, while Tsubaki watched with an amused smile. Sometimes, she wondered if Tsukushi might like her brother like her brother liked her. She hadn't really thought it was other than friendship, but seeing Tsukushi's shocked expression made her reconsider things. Maybe Tsukushi really did like Tsukasa. She hadn't even thought to consider Tsukushi, since it was obvious to her that Tsukushi liked Rui. She'd have to speak to her about it.
~
"Dinner was good," Tsukasa commented, smiling at the two most important women in his life, his sister and Tsukushi. He leaned back against his chair and stared at them. "So now what are we going to do?"
His sister took Tsukushi's hand and got up. "I need to talk with Tsukushi, I hope you don't mind?" If he minded, she didn't really care because she really wanted to speak to Tsukushi. So she gave him that look that basically said whatever his opinion was to voice what she wanted him to voice.
"Of course, I don't mind," he muttered with an edge that hinted that he didn't. Of course, Tsukushi didn't catch it because she was wondering what Tsubaki wanted to talk to her about. It was making her extremely curious and she wanted to find out.
As soon as they had left the room and gone up the stairs to Tsubaki's room, she asked, "What do you want to talk to me about, Tsubaki?"
Tsubaki smiled and gestured for Tsukushi to take a seat, which she did on the bed where Tsubaki immediately sat down besides her. "I just wanted to talk to you about something." She looked like she didn't know precisely what she wanted to say, which was unusual for Tsubaki since for as long as Tsukushi had known Tsubaki, Tsubaki had always had something to say. Tsubaki always knew what she wanted to say.
"Which is?" Tsukushi inquired in a half confused and half amused tone that Tsubaki was being secretive about it, which was not like Tsukasa's straightforward older sister at all. It drover her crazy with curiosity why Tsubaki was staring at her with a contemplative look that looked like she was dying to say something, but wasn't. Very unlike Tsubaki, who spoke out her mind much like her younger brother. "I know you're dying to say something."
"I am," Tsubaki agreed. "I guess I should just say it." She seemed to brace herself, and Tsukushi was thinking that whatever she was going to say was going to be amazing and very, very important. Overwhelming was also the thought that hit her. "How are things with Rui?"
Tsukushi blinked. She hadn't been expecting that, she'd been expecting something far more provoking than that. It wasn't a question that surprised, probably because so many things had happened with Rui. She knew that Tsubaki didn't know, and who better to go to than Tsubaki who wasn't as partial to Rui as Shizuka was? "Things are very confusing," she admitted honestly.
From the very beginning, she related to Tsubaki the whole of her story. How Rui and she had been engaged by their respective parents. How Rui had gotten jealous over Tsukasa and had said some very painful things to her that had caused her to get very upset and hurt. And how it had ended with her breaking up the engagement for the best, because she didn't want another episode like that to happen where
"I always thought you and Rui would make the perfect couple," Tsubaki finally said after consuming all the information that Tsukushi had related to her. She still couldn't get over the soap opera like circumstances, and she couldn't believe that Tsukushi didn't see how much Rui obviously liked her and how much she obviously liked Rui. "I think you and he would still make a perfect couple."
"That's the same thing Shizuka says," Tsukushi responded numbly, not wanting to believe that perhaps she had been too rash as she tended to be when she was emotionally upset. "That Rui and I make a perfect couple."
"Because you do!" Tsubaki exclaimed in full agreement with Shizuka. "Don't you see? You're hurt that he hurt you, but if you had really been more aware of the full circumstances of the situation that you'd see he really likes you as more than a friend. That he was only confused about his feelings before when he was acting so cold to you. I don't know Rui quite as well as Akira or Soujirou, but I do know that he tends to keep things to himself and carefully thinks of everything before he does them. And he's always sincere when he says something."
"I just don't want to lose the friendship we have," Tsukushi said in a still uncertain voice, though what Tsubaki was saying was finally getting to her because unlike Shizuka, she knew Tsubaki wasn't biased toward Rui. Shizuka tended to see Rui as her little brother, always pushing him and doing whatever she thought was best for him. She also wanted what was the best for Rui. "And what he said, only seemed to confirm my own worst fear. And of course, your brother telling me he liked me was also surprising."
Tsubaki laughed. "I don't see why that was a surprise at all. That's what I really wanted to talk to you about. That maybe you liked my brother? Which was why you had a stunned expression on your face when I told about his engagement to Shigeru, but that's obviously not it. Is it?"
"No, it isn't," Tsukushi responded, "I only see Tsukasa as a friend. I was just surprised that Tsukasa wasn't protesting over the engagement."
"He did," Tsubaki replied, "earlier. And from what you've told me, I think that inside you're just mad at Rui for being so indifferent about the engagement, apart from being scared of the changes it'll bring. You've been so close for so long, that it's a wonder you haven't thought of Rui as something more..."
Carefully considering what Tsubaki said, Tsukushi had to admit that in her words, there rang an undeniable truth. She'd been upset that Rui had been so uncaring about the engagement, like it was nothing while she had secretively been quite excited about it. Ever since she was little, he'd been her Prince Charming.
~
"I made you a bento today!" Tsukushi exclaimed as she sat down besides Rui. She hadn't really made the bento precisely, since she didn't know how to cook. But she had told her cook what foods that she had seen Rui eat and noticed that he'd like and had told her cook to make those foodstuff.
As she watched him look at the bento with curiosity before he smiled gratefully at her and opened it up to discover all of his favorite foods in it. "Thanks, Tsukushi," he murmured, digging into the bento with a delighted expression on his face. He didn't really realized that she knew him that well that she knew what he'd like to eat, it was a pleasant surprise.
She beamed and watched him eat the bento, obviously of everything else other than how the sun shining down on Rui made him look precisely like the Prince Charming in the fairytale stories that her mother had always read to her when she was a little girl. She blushed when a bit of food got stuck on his face and she reached her hand to wipe it off. Again, he smile gratefully at her only made her face pinker.
"You look cute when you're pink," he commented randomly as he tended to do all the time. "Why aren't you eating?" he questioned when he saw her still unopened bento in front of her. He grinned and reached his hand to it. "Silly girl, if you aren't going to eat it, do you want me to?"
She gasped and grabbed her bento away from his greedy hands. "You little pig!" she cried out. "Your bento's much bigger than mine because I know you have such a big appetite for such a thin boy!"
He was still smiling, Rui was one of his classic good moods. A very sunny and charming mood, charming like Prince Charming. When he smiled like that, it made her quite breathless to see how it transformed his face from the marble statute his face normally was into something warmer and a whole deal more alive, and touchable. She ducked her face to the side and took a slow steady breath, it was he who was the one that was cute, not she.
~
"From the look on your face," Tsubaki began, "I can tell you were considering what I said carefully. From what interaction between you two that I saw, I'd say you were closer than just friends. But I can understand your concern. But don't you think from what you told me that he says, that you ought to give it a chance? You'll never know unless you try."
She smiled then, a real smile and hugged Tsubaki. "I'm so glad you're here!" she exclaimed. "You and Shizuka are the only close friends that I have that are girls! I don't think those silly boys realize that sometimes I need a girl to confide in and not a boy!"
Tsubaki smiled and hugged her back, Tsukushi was like a little sister to her. "I'm glad I've helped you. I know you want to hold back, but sometimes it's not always a good thing to do."
The way Tsubaki said it seemed to come from some knowledge deep inside of her. She'd always wonder why Tsubaki had gone to New York when the one that she loved was here in Taiwan. Eventually, she'd pressed Tsukasa hard enough and he had told her the entire story. How their mother had forced Tsubaki to marry a family that was in the business of hotels, since it'd only aid their mother's own thriving business.
"It's because you held back and let your mother push you into something you didn't want?" Tsukushi murmured softly. She didn't know who was more surprised, she or Tsubaki.
"How did you know?" Tsubaki asked, then gave a small hollow laugh. "Of course," she remarked, "Tsukasa, I should have known. My little brother needs to have a lesson in when to keep his mouth shut. It's okay. You're the one person I don't mind him to tell. You're like the little sister that I never had."
"Are you unhappy?"
Tsubaki shrugged. "I wish I hadn't held back and let my mother control me. It wasn't like me to make things easy on her, but I did and I don't know why. But life's not as long as you think. I remember being your age and thinking that I'd have everything and that I had all the time in the world. If it's because you're scared of what you'll lose, you should think about how much you'll gain."
She smiled sadly. "I let my mother's words get into my head. I let her make me believe all that I could lose. She was going to disinherit me, you know if I married him. At least, that was what she threatened to do. But looking back, I was too caught thinking of what I'd lose to think of what I'd gain. I was pessimistic when I should have been optimistic, it was the biggest mistake of my life. I'd hate for that to happen to you."
"Maybe I was being pessimistic," Tsukushi admitted. "I was kind of excited when I first heard the news, but he didn't seem excited at all. I guess that kind dampened my own emotions about it. And when I heard he was afraid, that only heightened my fear and I reacted the wrong way. I should have been happy that he finally said he liked me, but I was too caught up in my fear."
"Just like me," Tsubaki murmured. "We're really similar. Just don't end up like me, promise?"
Tsukushi grinned. "I promise." She linked her pinky with the pinky that Tsubaki, swearing the ultimate friendship swear that she was going to go after the optimistic side and not let the pessimistic side drive her downward.
"Now that you're going after Rui," Tsubaki remarked, "how about helping me set up Tsukasa with Shigeru? Of course, that's after you meet her. Then you'll see how perfect Shigeru is for him! I mean when I first met her, all I could think was this is the type of girl I'd like to see with my little Tsukasa. She reminds me a little of you in a respect, but she much more hard headed than you are, about as hard headed as Tsukasa."
Tsukushi chuckled. "I'm game, when do I get to meet her?"
~
After the quite boring business meeting, Rui was driving Shizuka back to the house her parents had just bought. They'd driven mostly in silence when they'd pulled up into her driveway and Shizuka dropped the question she'd been dying to ask all night, "So what are you going to do about Tsukushi?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. Why do you ask?" he inquired like nothing major had happened, but Shizuka knew him too well to let him faze her with a nonchalant question like that. He'd forgotten that she'd helped changed his diapers and she'd held him when he'd cried when he was little. She was something in between a mother and a sister for him.
"I know you, Rui," she remarked. "And I know Tsukushi as well, I know that something has happened between the two of you even though F3 can't see that something is wrong. Both you and Tsukushi were uncomfortable when Soujirou asked if you'd worked your problem out. You two were already little awkward sitting together when you two got back. What happened?"
"She broke the engagement," Rui responded simply, managing to stun Shizuka.
She stared at him in absolute shock. At the worst, she'd thought that Tsukushi hadn't accepted Rui's apology, but she'd never have expected Tsukushi to break it. For the longest time, she had thought they'd make a cute couple, and when she'd heard they were engaged, that had only made her hopes and dreams for them rise. But they were horribly dashed now, now that she'd heard this shocking news.
"What are you going to do?" Shizuka asked softly in a much concerned voice. "Seriously, you like her don't you? You're always so passive about everything, if you want her you have to go after her. That's what a man is suppose to do. Girls don't chase boys, Rui."
"I know," he murmured. "I told her I liked her and she told me she'd broken the engagement," he said this in a very accepting voice. Before Shizuka could ask him why, he explained for her because he knew she'd ask, "She's scared as I was scared when I first heard the news. I was afraid that it change the relationship we had for the worst, but I know now that I like her and I'm not afraid to take this chance."
"Then you have to go after her, Rui," Shizuka murmured. "If you don't want to lose her, you're going to have to chase her. There's one thing I'm absolute certain about Tsukushi, she won't come back to you crawling. That's not the way she is, even if she regrets her decision. You're the one that's going to have to go after her."
"I know," he replied. "I know."
Author's Note: Reviews are much appreciated and needed cuz I haven't started Ch.11 yet ^^;;. I've always been at least ½ a chapter ahead, but not this time, but it's been a long time since I released for me (5 days) so I thought maybe if I released, something someone said would inspire me. Thanks!
Check out my original novel: Secret, A Tale of Love
Author: Yih
Author Note: Thank you so much for your support! Please keep reviewing! There's a more important note at the end of the chapter. Please read it!
10: Fateful Events (December 24, 2002 to December 28, 2002)
She sat there stunned. Actually, she was more than stunned, she felt she was petrified there. She didn't know how she was suppose to respond. She really shouldn't have been surprised as she was. After all, hadn't her own parents just arranged an arranged marriage for her? But of all people for an arranged marriage to happen to, the last person in her mind that it'd happen to was Tsukasa. She just didn't see him submitting to that at all. It wasn't like him. It wasn't like him at all.
"Say something Tsukushi," Tsukasa urged, having an utterly adorable expression on his face if she had even glanced at him. But ever since he had told her that he was engaged to an Ookawahara Shigeru, the name was vaguely familiar as it had to be. She didn't see Doumyouji Kaede engaging her son to anyone but a high socialite, and a socialite of equal rank. "Tsukushi! Did you even hear what I said?"
She finally nodded when he grabbed her by the arms and started shaking her. He only let go after Tsubaki hit him on the head. "What do you think you're doing? Didn't you see she nodded at you? She heard what you said!" his sister shouted at him.
Tsubaki's voice brought Tsukushi back into reality. It wasn't that she was upset, she just didn't see the arrangement fitting with Tsukasa's personality at all. She didn't really see it fitting with Rui, as passive as he was. She sighed and hoped that Rui wouldn't remain mad at her for too long, she hadn't meant to hurt him. Didn't he see that it was for the best? If they're arranged marriage went wrong, they could end up hating each other and she couldn't stand the thought of hating her best friend.
"I'm starving," Tsukasa declared, "let's go eat. Come on, Tsukushi." He grabbed her hand and dragged her with him to the dining room, while Tsubaki watched with an amused smile. Sometimes, she wondered if Tsukushi might like her brother like her brother liked her. She hadn't really thought it was other than friendship, but seeing Tsukushi's shocked expression made her reconsider things. Maybe Tsukushi really did like Tsukasa. She hadn't even thought to consider Tsukushi, since it was obvious to her that Tsukushi liked Rui. She'd have to speak to her about it.
~
"Dinner was good," Tsukasa commented, smiling at the two most important women in his life, his sister and Tsukushi. He leaned back against his chair and stared at them. "So now what are we going to do?"
His sister took Tsukushi's hand and got up. "I need to talk with Tsukushi, I hope you don't mind?" If he minded, she didn't really care because she really wanted to speak to Tsukushi. So she gave him that look that basically said whatever his opinion was to voice what she wanted him to voice.
"Of course, I don't mind," he muttered with an edge that hinted that he didn't. Of course, Tsukushi didn't catch it because she was wondering what Tsubaki wanted to talk to her about. It was making her extremely curious and she wanted to find out.
As soon as they had left the room and gone up the stairs to Tsubaki's room, she asked, "What do you want to talk to me about, Tsubaki?"
Tsubaki smiled and gestured for Tsukushi to take a seat, which she did on the bed where Tsubaki immediately sat down besides her. "I just wanted to talk to you about something." She looked like she didn't know precisely what she wanted to say, which was unusual for Tsubaki since for as long as Tsukushi had known Tsubaki, Tsubaki had always had something to say. Tsubaki always knew what she wanted to say.
"Which is?" Tsukushi inquired in a half confused and half amused tone that Tsubaki was being secretive about it, which was not like Tsukasa's straightforward older sister at all. It drover her crazy with curiosity why Tsubaki was staring at her with a contemplative look that looked like she was dying to say something, but wasn't. Very unlike Tsubaki, who spoke out her mind much like her younger brother. "I know you're dying to say something."
"I am," Tsubaki agreed. "I guess I should just say it." She seemed to brace herself, and Tsukushi was thinking that whatever she was going to say was going to be amazing and very, very important. Overwhelming was also the thought that hit her. "How are things with Rui?"
Tsukushi blinked. She hadn't been expecting that, she'd been expecting something far more provoking than that. It wasn't a question that surprised, probably because so many things had happened with Rui. She knew that Tsubaki didn't know, and who better to go to than Tsubaki who wasn't as partial to Rui as Shizuka was? "Things are very confusing," she admitted honestly.
From the very beginning, she related to Tsubaki the whole of her story. How Rui and she had been engaged by their respective parents. How Rui had gotten jealous over Tsukasa and had said some very painful things to her that had caused her to get very upset and hurt. And how it had ended with her breaking up the engagement for the best, because she didn't want another episode like that to happen where
"I always thought you and Rui would make the perfect couple," Tsubaki finally said after consuming all the information that Tsukushi had related to her. She still couldn't get over the soap opera like circumstances, and she couldn't believe that Tsukushi didn't see how much Rui obviously liked her and how much she obviously liked Rui. "I think you and he would still make a perfect couple."
"That's the same thing Shizuka says," Tsukushi responded numbly, not wanting to believe that perhaps she had been too rash as she tended to be when she was emotionally upset. "That Rui and I make a perfect couple."
"Because you do!" Tsubaki exclaimed in full agreement with Shizuka. "Don't you see? You're hurt that he hurt you, but if you had really been more aware of the full circumstances of the situation that you'd see he really likes you as more than a friend. That he was only confused about his feelings before when he was acting so cold to you. I don't know Rui quite as well as Akira or Soujirou, but I do know that he tends to keep things to himself and carefully thinks of everything before he does them. And he's always sincere when he says something."
"I just don't want to lose the friendship we have," Tsukushi said in a still uncertain voice, though what Tsubaki was saying was finally getting to her because unlike Shizuka, she knew Tsubaki wasn't biased toward Rui. Shizuka tended to see Rui as her little brother, always pushing him and doing whatever she thought was best for him. She also wanted what was the best for Rui. "And what he said, only seemed to confirm my own worst fear. And of course, your brother telling me he liked me was also surprising."
Tsubaki laughed. "I don't see why that was a surprise at all. That's what I really wanted to talk to you about. That maybe you liked my brother? Which was why you had a stunned expression on your face when I told about his engagement to Shigeru, but that's obviously not it. Is it?"
"No, it isn't," Tsukushi responded, "I only see Tsukasa as a friend. I was just surprised that Tsukasa wasn't protesting over the engagement."
"He did," Tsubaki replied, "earlier. And from what you've told me, I think that inside you're just mad at Rui for being so indifferent about the engagement, apart from being scared of the changes it'll bring. You've been so close for so long, that it's a wonder you haven't thought of Rui as something more..."
Carefully considering what Tsubaki said, Tsukushi had to admit that in her words, there rang an undeniable truth. She'd been upset that Rui had been so uncaring about the engagement, like it was nothing while she had secretively been quite excited about it. Ever since she was little, he'd been her Prince Charming.
~
"I made you a bento today!" Tsukushi exclaimed as she sat down besides Rui. She hadn't really made the bento precisely, since she didn't know how to cook. But she had told her cook what foods that she had seen Rui eat and noticed that he'd like and had told her cook to make those foodstuff.
As she watched him look at the bento with curiosity before he smiled gratefully at her and opened it up to discover all of his favorite foods in it. "Thanks, Tsukushi," he murmured, digging into the bento with a delighted expression on his face. He didn't really realized that she knew him that well that she knew what he'd like to eat, it was a pleasant surprise.
She beamed and watched him eat the bento, obviously of everything else other than how the sun shining down on Rui made him look precisely like the Prince Charming in the fairytale stories that her mother had always read to her when she was a little girl. She blushed when a bit of food got stuck on his face and she reached her hand to wipe it off. Again, he smile gratefully at her only made her face pinker.
"You look cute when you're pink," he commented randomly as he tended to do all the time. "Why aren't you eating?" he questioned when he saw her still unopened bento in front of her. He grinned and reached his hand to it. "Silly girl, if you aren't going to eat it, do you want me to?"
She gasped and grabbed her bento away from his greedy hands. "You little pig!" she cried out. "Your bento's much bigger than mine because I know you have such a big appetite for such a thin boy!"
He was still smiling, Rui was one of his classic good moods. A very sunny and charming mood, charming like Prince Charming. When he smiled like that, it made her quite breathless to see how it transformed his face from the marble statute his face normally was into something warmer and a whole deal more alive, and touchable. She ducked her face to the side and took a slow steady breath, it was he who was the one that was cute, not she.
~
"From the look on your face," Tsubaki began, "I can tell you were considering what I said carefully. From what interaction between you two that I saw, I'd say you were closer than just friends. But I can understand your concern. But don't you think from what you told me that he says, that you ought to give it a chance? You'll never know unless you try."
She smiled then, a real smile and hugged Tsubaki. "I'm so glad you're here!" she exclaimed. "You and Shizuka are the only close friends that I have that are girls! I don't think those silly boys realize that sometimes I need a girl to confide in and not a boy!"
Tsubaki smiled and hugged her back, Tsukushi was like a little sister to her. "I'm glad I've helped you. I know you want to hold back, but sometimes it's not always a good thing to do."
The way Tsubaki said it seemed to come from some knowledge deep inside of her. She'd always wonder why Tsubaki had gone to New York when the one that she loved was here in Taiwan. Eventually, she'd pressed Tsukasa hard enough and he had told her the entire story. How their mother had forced Tsubaki to marry a family that was in the business of hotels, since it'd only aid their mother's own thriving business.
"It's because you held back and let your mother push you into something you didn't want?" Tsukushi murmured softly. She didn't know who was more surprised, she or Tsubaki.
"How did you know?" Tsubaki asked, then gave a small hollow laugh. "Of course," she remarked, "Tsukasa, I should have known. My little brother needs to have a lesson in when to keep his mouth shut. It's okay. You're the one person I don't mind him to tell. You're like the little sister that I never had."
"Are you unhappy?"
Tsubaki shrugged. "I wish I hadn't held back and let my mother control me. It wasn't like me to make things easy on her, but I did and I don't know why. But life's not as long as you think. I remember being your age and thinking that I'd have everything and that I had all the time in the world. If it's because you're scared of what you'll lose, you should think about how much you'll gain."
She smiled sadly. "I let my mother's words get into my head. I let her make me believe all that I could lose. She was going to disinherit me, you know if I married him. At least, that was what she threatened to do. But looking back, I was too caught thinking of what I'd lose to think of what I'd gain. I was pessimistic when I should have been optimistic, it was the biggest mistake of my life. I'd hate for that to happen to you."
"Maybe I was being pessimistic," Tsukushi admitted. "I was kind of excited when I first heard the news, but he didn't seem excited at all. I guess that kind dampened my own emotions about it. And when I heard he was afraid, that only heightened my fear and I reacted the wrong way. I should have been happy that he finally said he liked me, but I was too caught up in my fear."
"Just like me," Tsubaki murmured. "We're really similar. Just don't end up like me, promise?"
Tsukushi grinned. "I promise." She linked her pinky with the pinky that Tsubaki, swearing the ultimate friendship swear that she was going to go after the optimistic side and not let the pessimistic side drive her downward.
"Now that you're going after Rui," Tsubaki remarked, "how about helping me set up Tsukasa with Shigeru? Of course, that's after you meet her. Then you'll see how perfect Shigeru is for him! I mean when I first met her, all I could think was this is the type of girl I'd like to see with my little Tsukasa. She reminds me a little of you in a respect, but she much more hard headed than you are, about as hard headed as Tsukasa."
Tsukushi chuckled. "I'm game, when do I get to meet her?"
~
After the quite boring business meeting, Rui was driving Shizuka back to the house her parents had just bought. They'd driven mostly in silence when they'd pulled up into her driveway and Shizuka dropped the question she'd been dying to ask all night, "So what are you going to do about Tsukushi?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. Why do you ask?" he inquired like nothing major had happened, but Shizuka knew him too well to let him faze her with a nonchalant question like that. He'd forgotten that she'd helped changed his diapers and she'd held him when he'd cried when he was little. She was something in between a mother and a sister for him.
"I know you, Rui," she remarked. "And I know Tsukushi as well, I know that something has happened between the two of you even though F3 can't see that something is wrong. Both you and Tsukushi were uncomfortable when Soujirou asked if you'd worked your problem out. You two were already little awkward sitting together when you two got back. What happened?"
"She broke the engagement," Rui responded simply, managing to stun Shizuka.
She stared at him in absolute shock. At the worst, she'd thought that Tsukushi hadn't accepted Rui's apology, but she'd never have expected Tsukushi to break it. For the longest time, she had thought they'd make a cute couple, and when she'd heard they were engaged, that had only made her hopes and dreams for them rise. But they were horribly dashed now, now that she'd heard this shocking news.
"What are you going to do?" Shizuka asked softly in a much concerned voice. "Seriously, you like her don't you? You're always so passive about everything, if you want her you have to go after her. That's what a man is suppose to do. Girls don't chase boys, Rui."
"I know," he murmured. "I told her I liked her and she told me she'd broken the engagement," he said this in a very accepting voice. Before Shizuka could ask him why, he explained for her because he knew she'd ask, "She's scared as I was scared when I first heard the news. I was afraid that it change the relationship we had for the worst, but I know now that I like her and I'm not afraid to take this chance."
"Then you have to go after her, Rui," Shizuka murmured. "If you don't want to lose her, you're going to have to chase her. There's one thing I'm absolute certain about Tsukushi, she won't come back to you crawling. That's not the way she is, even if she regrets her decision. You're the one that's going to have to go after her."
"I know," he replied. "I know."
Author's Note: Reviews are much appreciated and needed cuz I haven't started Ch.11 yet ^^;;. I've always been at least ½ a chapter ahead, but not this time, but it's been a long time since I released for me (5 days) so I thought maybe if I released, something someone said would inspire me. Thanks!
Check out my original novel: Secret, A Tale of Love