ちびまおう - たなかきみこ:dajiuha!

chibi maou – tanaka kimiko:#10

The pounding in her chest was echoed by the thudding of her feet on the pavement as Kimiko raced to class on Friday.  At last, after a sleepless, frustrating night of trying to envision her secret admirer, she was determined to find out who it was. Actually, she already had an idea who it was, and the thought made her frivolous with excitement!

That day, class seemed to last ten times as long and twenty times as boring.  She was constantly spying on people out of the corner of her eye to see if anybody was watching her during the lesson, but to her disappointment and frustration everybody was acting perfectly normal.

That lunch period she sat with Meiling and Shaoran, who she had been trying to be friendly to since the embarrassing incident the other day. As soon as Shaoran looked away, Miko lowered her voice to a hushed whisper. '

Hey, Meiling, guess what?"

"What?" asked her friend.

Miko grinned. "The plan worked! I got a love letter and I think it's from you-know-who!"

The Chinese girl groaned.  "You're such a twerp.  I hate to be pessimistic, but it's probably meant to be a prank or something.  Don't take it seriously.  She doesn't like you." Miko rolled her eyes. 

"I bet if you got a love letter from Shaoran, you'd be going crazy right about now.  I'm sure it's from Tomoyo!  Get this… it was cherry-scented stationary!"

"And what's that supposed to mean?" asked Meiling in a sarcastic tone.

"Sakura means CHERRY blossom.  She, um, likes cherry things.  Well, I mean, she…used to."

Meiling sighed. "You're more pathetic than I thought!  Be realistic, Miko… somebody's just messing around with you." But the other girl refused to believe her.  The more Meiling insisted it couldn't be, the more it HAD to be true.  She was soon deeply submerged into her own world.

During the rest of the day, Kimiko could tell there were words coming out of the teacher's mouth, but she wasn't listening to them.  She could hear only the voice of her angel echoing in her ears.  Meiling had told her that Tomoyo could sing, and very well at that, although Meiling had insisted that she was still better.  Miko hoped that she could hear Tomoyo sing sometime soon, even though she wasn't especially fond of traditional choir music.  'Then again, I guess not all of us are made to sing punk…' she thought with amusement. 

'I bet Tomoyo could make even the most boring old song worth listening to.'

At the end of class, Miko nudged Tomoyo and asked her if they could have a private talk.  The dark haired girl nodded, and asked Sakura to please wait for her a moment before going home.

"Shall we talk by the sakura trees?" suggested Tomoyo.  Kimiko agreed, and they walked there silently.  Tomoyo leaned gently against a trunk, and looked up at Miko.  The soft wind made the pink petals fly off and hover in the air, twirling in a quiet descent to the earth.  It seemed to Miko as if they were dancing to a song sung by the wind, a song that radiated from the angel before her. 

A sweet scent encircled them, and for a moment she was lost again, and forgot why she had even asked for the meeting.  All that mattered was that she was here with her true love under the sakura branches. Alone, with nobody here to tell her that it wasn't real.

Tomoyo broke Miko out of her reverie. "It's beautiful out here, isn't it? It's too bad the blossoms won't last much longer." She sighed pleasantly and smiled at Miko. "But that's not really why you wanted to talk to me, is it?" Miko's heart skipped a beat, and with trembling fingers, she pulled the green-inked note from her pocket. "You're right...Tomoyo, I... well... I wanted you to know that... Ok, I have this FRIEND. And, um, she wanted me to tell you something really important. In fact, it's er... something about you." stuttered Kimiko. In her mind she bashed her head against an imaginary wall. This wasn't what she had planned to say!!

Tomoyo looked concerned, but her polite smile showed a hint of amusement. "Really? What important thing did she want to tell me?" she asked kindly. Kimiko blushed slightly and subconsciously tugged at her collar.

"Well... see... my friend has...she...she really likes you." finished Miko lamely. "I mean, more than like, she..." she stammered. Miko felt dizzy and disoriented all of a sudden.

Tomoyo tilted her head slightly and nodded in understanding. "I believe you mean the other meaning of like?" she replied, still smiling warmly. Kimiko took a sudden strong interest in an insect on the ground. "Um... yeah. And, uh... she got...this note..." Miko held it out with a shaky hand, "...and I wanted to... I mean, SHE wanted ME to...uh... ask you if you wrote it."

"You're a very nice person to do such favors for your friends. Do I know this girl?" asked Tomoyo with a definite glint in her eye. Miko closed her eyes and gave herself up to the overpowering emotions flooding her heart.

"Yes, you see her every day... She's always thinking about you. Even though you probably hardly think of her as more than an acquaintance, she wishes you two were so much more than that... She dreams about you at night, she fantasizes about proposing her love to you, but when she wakes up her illusions are shattered by reality. Every hour that she's near you passes in an instant, and every second when she's away from you lasts forever. It's driving her crazy, it's almost like she doesn't know herself any more. And there's nobody who understands, nobody who helps her to keep hoping. Even at home, she's all alone. She's just...drowning in her love for you, Tomoyo-chan. It's a beautiful feeling, but it's killing her at the same time..." replied Miko, feeling very out of breath.

Tomoyo's eyes had been running back and forth across the letter during this long monologue. Her smile had faded and her deep blue eyes met with Miko's. "I'm very sorry Kimiko-chan... but...I'm afraid I didn't write this letter." There was no reply. "Please don't take it too hard. We're still good friends. I'll always be here to talk to you about your problems if you want. You don't have to be alone." The dark haired girl's eyes were filled with sadness and sympathy.

She searched Miko's unreadable expression. "You're far away, Kimiko-chan. Where are you?"

Kimiko's voice came out in a hoarse whisper. "In a world that's...disappearing, I'm afraid."