An Ordinary Day in the Life of Hikaru and Nova Shidou
A Magic Knight Rayearth Story
By: Sheo Darren
Magic Knight Rayearth is copyrighted by CLAMP. I love these women, but why, oh why did they have to make Chobits? And is there an Angelic Layer fighting game? I want a copy! Uh, anyway, the author does not claim ownership on any of the Rayearth characters and ideas...
Chapter Two: The Cherry Tree
There were many sakura trees in the various parks and streets of Tokyo. There was a legend about one of these trees in particular, the single lone tree growing in the center of the park. It was rumored to have been planted during the time of the Meiji Restoration, with many rumors claiming it to be much older than that. Certainly it has existed in its solitary glory as long as the oldest people in the city remember, perhaps even longer than that. Its size accounted for its age; it was simply the park's center of attention.
Many stories abounded this tree, tales of enchantment and mystery. The most well known and popular among them was about the fairy of the tree. It was said there was a fairy that dwelt within the tree, a fairy older than time itself, the being that created the world and was happy to live in it without a care. If a group of friends wished to have their friendship endure throughout their lives, they would go beneath the tree and faithfully swear to uphold their friendship. If they truly desired it, the fairy would appear to grant their wish and bless their friendship.
Some legends are true in a sense.
The quiet of the tree's glade was abruptly ended when two ninth graders arrived, to the delight and amusement of two other girls who were already waiting underneath the tree.
"I got here first!" Nova victoriously claimed as she slid to a halt.
"No way!" Hikaru, only a moment behind her sister, protested the matter. "You pushed me back there!"
"I did not!"
"Did too!"
"That seems to be a perennial argument between the two of you," one of the waiting girls commented.
"Let them be, Fuu," her companion told the first girl matter-of-factly. "After all, what can you expect among dwarvettes?"
Forgetting their argument, Hikaru and Nova united in the face of the teasing directed against their common sore point - their short stature. "We are not dwarvettes!"
Umi Ryuuzaki and Fuu Houji enjoyed themselves immensely whenever the Shidou twins were around. The redheads' energy and charisma were simply infective, and their antics were extremely amusing to watch. Interestingly, the four friends complemented each other rather well, each of them providing some sort of balancing effect for the others to stand by.
Umi, the tallest of the group, was rather bossy and proud of her good looks, especially her matching azure hair and cobalt blue eyes. Coming from a wealthy family of which she was the only child, she had grown up rather spoiled and had a hair-trigger temper, tending to snap at the tiniest mistakes. Nevertheless, she was the heartthrob of her batch, cheering squad leader and current 'Most Popular Girl' in the campus. Though Umi loved to pretend to be rather horrible in temper, she doted on Hikaru and Nova, treating them like the little sisters she never had.
Quiet Fuu, eldest among the four girls, was the group's conscience and common sense in that she was always the one to provide simple, direct answers to complicated questions. She had short blonde hair in contrast to her delicate emerald eyes and wore a pair of rather large spectacles. Very patient and a born peacemaker (especially valuable what with Umi's hothead nature and Hikaru and Nova often at odds with each other), she was the model of contentment of them four.
"You two are dwarvettes," Fuu confirmed, "While Umi over her is a cranky sorceress."
"And what would that make you?" Umi demanded of her.
Fuu tipped her glasses up her nose and put her palms together in a seraphic gesture, smiling as she went. "Why, that would make me the beautiful damsel in distress, awaiting her promised prince to come and save her from such evil monsters as you."
"Oh, and the prince would be Ferio, would it?" Nova suggested.
At the mention of the star soccer captain of her school, Fuu blushed slightly. "Of course."
"Why is it," Umi cut in, "That I find it hard to imagine Ferio astride a white horse, gallantly coming in to rescue someone like you, when the cranky sorceress is far more beautiful than you?"
"Because he'd turn into stone if you stare at him long enough?" Hikaru asked. "Oh, look who's talking!" Umi returned. "As if tomboys like you could ever get a fraction of the admiration I enjoy!"
"Well, I still think you're an old hag," countered Nova.
"That's Miss Alcyone!" protested Umi.
The girls all burst into laughter at the thought of the exotic-looking Science teacher -Umi's pet peeve and constant target of her jokes- as a grumpy old witch.
Suddenly, there was a rustle up above their heads, in the leaves and branches of the cherry tree overhead. The four friends looked up expectantly.
What annoyed Umi about Mokona was that Mokona was simply Mokona - an annoying animated cotton puffball. Mokona's habit of regularly using her head as a springboard might have also contributed to the state of hostility between them.
With its usual carefree grace, Mokona bounced off Umi's head and landed into the awaiting Hikaru's arms. The fairy preferred to be carried by either of the Shidou twins, often selecting one of the redheads' shoulder as a perch from which it could scold Umi.
This time, Umi very nearly succumbed to the temptation to wring the fairy's neck -or whatever was close enough to it; Mokona did not seem to have a neck. "Hey, what's with the acrobatics?" she snapped at the chubby creature.
"Puu-pupupu-puu-puuu!"
"That's no excuse for using my head as a practice floor for gymnastics!"
"Pu-puu-pupupuu-pu-puu!"
"Mokona says that you head is a convenient trampoline because it's so big," Hikaru translated. Only she and Nova could truly understand every word -or maybe 'puu'- Mokona puu-ed out. "That's why she likes to jump on it."
"Trampoline? TRAMPOLINE?"
"Pu-pupupu-puu-puu-pupuu!"
Nova grinned maliciously. "She says your wrinkles show when you are angry, Umi," the younger Shidou added.
"Wrinkles? Never!" Umi went through the trouble of tossing her luxuriously long hair with her free hand while putting on a latently seductive air. "You should know that my skin is unblemished and can never be tainted with a pimple, wrinkle or mole, ever! I am the incarnation of the goddess of beauty!"
"Yeah, right," Hikaru said dryly. Fortunately, Umi was far too engrossed in prattling about the virtues of her loveliness to even think of snapping at her.
"Ami Mizuno?" Nova was asking Fuu.
"No, she means Sailor Venus."
"Oh."
"And when I'm through with my make-up and beauty tips," Umi continued, putting on her dreamiest tone while clasping her hands together. "I'll be absolutely stunning! No boy would be able to resist the tiniest plea I make! And woe to the guy whom I've marked for my slate!"
"You do mean Headmaster Clef, do you?" Hikaru, Nova and Fuu asked.
"Eh?" Umi was aghast upon hearing a secret she hid as her own divulged. "H- How did you know?"
It had been the sharp-eyed Nova, always on the look-out for a piece of juicy gossip she could needle people with, who had first noticed that Umi seemed rather off whenever the handsome Headmaster of Hikaru and Nova's high school appeared. A bit of logical extrapolation explained how this accounted for occasional slips-of-the-tongue, faintness, and uncharacteristic shyness on Umi's part. Nova had told Hikaru, and Hikaru had promptly told Fuu, who in turn confided to a very amused Ferio. As far as the friends knew, that was the extent of the gossip.
"Oh, the ignominy!" Umi was a very good actor, capable of exaggerating her emotions without making it look like she was really pretending to. "To hear it be said that my one true desire is bared to the entire world to see! The humiliation! The pain! Not to mention the thoughts the girls at the cheering squad will think about me if they ever learn I fell in love with the headmaster of the lower grades! Ah, unrequited love is so poignant and ironic!"
Impressed with Umi's acting performance, Fuu and Hikaru applauded.
Nova, on the other hand, snickered.
Instantly, Umi was on her. "Unlike you," she said, pointing a finger at Nova as if the pink-haired girl was a snake poised to strike and the finger was a stick posed to kill it. "Who is so engrossed in your sweaty, uncultured tomboyish games, that you haven't had the time to find yourself a boy to become your inspiration?"
"Oh, I do have an inspirational love!" Nova said, grinning.
"Oh, yeah?" Umi scoffed. "Tell it, then."
Nova slyly regarded her indignant friend. "Do you really want to know who it is? You might regret it."
"The nerve! As if you can bring anything against me that will pull me down to such uncultivated levels as yours?" Umi put on her 'defiant' mode, hands on her hips, nose upturned in scorn. "Do your worst, Nova."
"Okay." To Hikaru's puzzlement, Nova turned to her, her elfin face now looking very bedraggled and lonely. "Hikaru-chan," she said softly, taking her sister's wrists in her hands.
"Eh?" Hikaru was very much perplexed at being addressed as Hikaru-chan by her sister. Meanwhile, Mokona had hopped away from Hikaru to Fuu's arms and was now watching the spectacle unfold.
Nova looked so sad, so plaintive, that it was all Hikaru could do not to hug her sister in an attempt to comfort her. "I've been keeping this inside me for so long," the younger Shidou murmured. "Ever since I was born, I've hidden my true emotions from all of you. I've suppressed myself, allowed myself to be so cruel with myself just because I was frightened and confused of what you'd say about me.
"But now, now I can finally tell you the truth." So saying, Nova's hands slipped from Hikaru's wrists to wrap themselves around the latter's slim waist. "I can finally set my heart free by telling you my feelings for you."
"What do you mean by feelings for me?" The poor Hikaru's thoughts were utterly swamped by her sister's strange behavior.
"This." Nova buried her face into her clothes, hugging Hikaru with all the might she could muster in her small frame. "Oh, Hikaru."
"N-Nova!" Hikaru stammered, surprised at her sister's suddenly excessively loving behavior.
"I love you, Hikaru," Nova whimpered. "I love you so much."
"Eeeewww!" Always the prim and cultured socialite, Umi was understandably disgusted. "Yuri!"
For her part, Fuu merely tipped her glasses and said, "This is highly irregular," in a tone that sounded like the sight of Nova telling Hikaru that she really loved her sister was common thought to it.
Hikaru was trying to pry off Nova's very tight and loving embrace. "Hey, Nova!" she exclaimed, face beet red. "L-Let me go! This is embarrassing!"
"What's embarrassing?" innocently asked Nova. "I'm only proclaiming my love for you, Hikaru!"
"That's exactly what's embarrassing! We're both girls, and I'm your sister at that!"
"That shouldn't deter true love!"
"Nova!"
She grinned unrepentantly.
Then Hikaru, seeing Umi almost ready to throw up and Fuu now looking rather concerned, caught on to her twin's scheme. "Done with the acting?" she asked, grimacing.
"Two can play that game," Nova snickered as she disengaged her arms from Hikaru. She meant Umi, who was still nauseated.
"Well, congratulations," came the weak and muttered reply. "You've just gotten your whimper from me."
"Dear sister," Hikaru began sarcastically, "The next time you try that trick, at least give me fair warning. I really thought you were a."
"Queer?" Nova put on the 'despondent' voice she used earlier. "Why, Hikaru? Can't you accept my love for you?"
"I'm going to tell you to Mama!" the elder Shidou threatened.
"Tattletale!" returned her twin.
"Have you ever wondered," Fuu commented, "How we all come here to have a serious discussion, but it always ends up like this?"
The girls all looked at each other and began to laugh.
A Magic Knight Rayearth Story
By: Sheo Darren
Magic Knight Rayearth is copyrighted by CLAMP. I love these women, but why, oh why did they have to make Chobits? And is there an Angelic Layer fighting game? I want a copy! Uh, anyway, the author does not claim ownership on any of the Rayearth characters and ideas...
Chapter Two: The Cherry Tree
There were many sakura trees in the various parks and streets of Tokyo. There was a legend about one of these trees in particular, the single lone tree growing in the center of the park. It was rumored to have been planted during the time of the Meiji Restoration, with many rumors claiming it to be much older than that. Certainly it has existed in its solitary glory as long as the oldest people in the city remember, perhaps even longer than that. Its size accounted for its age; it was simply the park's center of attention.
Many stories abounded this tree, tales of enchantment and mystery. The most well known and popular among them was about the fairy of the tree. It was said there was a fairy that dwelt within the tree, a fairy older than time itself, the being that created the world and was happy to live in it without a care. If a group of friends wished to have their friendship endure throughout their lives, they would go beneath the tree and faithfully swear to uphold their friendship. If they truly desired it, the fairy would appear to grant their wish and bless their friendship.
Some legends are true in a sense.
The quiet of the tree's glade was abruptly ended when two ninth graders arrived, to the delight and amusement of two other girls who were already waiting underneath the tree.
"I got here first!" Nova victoriously claimed as she slid to a halt.
"No way!" Hikaru, only a moment behind her sister, protested the matter. "You pushed me back there!"
"I did not!"
"Did too!"
"That seems to be a perennial argument between the two of you," one of the waiting girls commented.
"Let them be, Fuu," her companion told the first girl matter-of-factly. "After all, what can you expect among dwarvettes?"
Forgetting their argument, Hikaru and Nova united in the face of the teasing directed against their common sore point - their short stature. "We are not dwarvettes!"
Umi Ryuuzaki and Fuu Houji enjoyed themselves immensely whenever the Shidou twins were around. The redheads' energy and charisma were simply infective, and their antics were extremely amusing to watch. Interestingly, the four friends complemented each other rather well, each of them providing some sort of balancing effect for the others to stand by.
Umi, the tallest of the group, was rather bossy and proud of her good looks, especially her matching azure hair and cobalt blue eyes. Coming from a wealthy family of which she was the only child, she had grown up rather spoiled and had a hair-trigger temper, tending to snap at the tiniest mistakes. Nevertheless, she was the heartthrob of her batch, cheering squad leader and current 'Most Popular Girl' in the campus. Though Umi loved to pretend to be rather horrible in temper, she doted on Hikaru and Nova, treating them like the little sisters she never had.
Quiet Fuu, eldest among the four girls, was the group's conscience and common sense in that she was always the one to provide simple, direct answers to complicated questions. She had short blonde hair in contrast to her delicate emerald eyes and wore a pair of rather large spectacles. Very patient and a born peacemaker (especially valuable what with Umi's hothead nature and Hikaru and Nova often at odds with each other), she was the model of contentment of them four.
"You two are dwarvettes," Fuu confirmed, "While Umi over her is a cranky sorceress."
"And what would that make you?" Umi demanded of her.
Fuu tipped her glasses up her nose and put her palms together in a seraphic gesture, smiling as she went. "Why, that would make me the beautiful damsel in distress, awaiting her promised prince to come and save her from such evil monsters as you."
"Oh, and the prince would be Ferio, would it?" Nova suggested.
At the mention of the star soccer captain of her school, Fuu blushed slightly. "Of course."
"Why is it," Umi cut in, "That I find it hard to imagine Ferio astride a white horse, gallantly coming in to rescue someone like you, when the cranky sorceress is far more beautiful than you?"
"Because he'd turn into stone if you stare at him long enough?" Hikaru asked. "Oh, look who's talking!" Umi returned. "As if tomboys like you could ever get a fraction of the admiration I enjoy!"
"Well, I still think you're an old hag," countered Nova.
"That's Miss Alcyone!" protested Umi.
The girls all burst into laughter at the thought of the exotic-looking Science teacher -Umi's pet peeve and constant target of her jokes- as a grumpy old witch.
Suddenly, there was a rustle up above their heads, in the leaves and branches of the cherry tree overhead. The four friends looked up expectantly.
What annoyed Umi about Mokona was that Mokona was simply Mokona - an annoying animated cotton puffball. Mokona's habit of regularly using her head as a springboard might have also contributed to the state of hostility between them.
With its usual carefree grace, Mokona bounced off Umi's head and landed into the awaiting Hikaru's arms. The fairy preferred to be carried by either of the Shidou twins, often selecting one of the redheads' shoulder as a perch from which it could scold Umi.
This time, Umi very nearly succumbed to the temptation to wring the fairy's neck -or whatever was close enough to it; Mokona did not seem to have a neck. "Hey, what's with the acrobatics?" she snapped at the chubby creature.
"Puu-pupupu-puu-puuu!"
"That's no excuse for using my head as a practice floor for gymnastics!"
"Pu-puu-pupupuu-pu-puu!"
"Mokona says that you head is a convenient trampoline because it's so big," Hikaru translated. Only she and Nova could truly understand every word -or maybe 'puu'- Mokona puu-ed out. "That's why she likes to jump on it."
"Trampoline? TRAMPOLINE?"
"Pu-pupupu-puu-puu-pupuu!"
Nova grinned maliciously. "She says your wrinkles show when you are angry, Umi," the younger Shidou added.
"Wrinkles? Never!" Umi went through the trouble of tossing her luxuriously long hair with her free hand while putting on a latently seductive air. "You should know that my skin is unblemished and can never be tainted with a pimple, wrinkle or mole, ever! I am the incarnation of the goddess of beauty!"
"Yeah, right," Hikaru said dryly. Fortunately, Umi was far too engrossed in prattling about the virtues of her loveliness to even think of snapping at her.
"Ami Mizuno?" Nova was asking Fuu.
"No, she means Sailor Venus."
"Oh."
"And when I'm through with my make-up and beauty tips," Umi continued, putting on her dreamiest tone while clasping her hands together. "I'll be absolutely stunning! No boy would be able to resist the tiniest plea I make! And woe to the guy whom I've marked for my slate!"
"You do mean Headmaster Clef, do you?" Hikaru, Nova and Fuu asked.
"Eh?" Umi was aghast upon hearing a secret she hid as her own divulged. "H- How did you know?"
It had been the sharp-eyed Nova, always on the look-out for a piece of juicy gossip she could needle people with, who had first noticed that Umi seemed rather off whenever the handsome Headmaster of Hikaru and Nova's high school appeared. A bit of logical extrapolation explained how this accounted for occasional slips-of-the-tongue, faintness, and uncharacteristic shyness on Umi's part. Nova had told Hikaru, and Hikaru had promptly told Fuu, who in turn confided to a very amused Ferio. As far as the friends knew, that was the extent of the gossip.
"Oh, the ignominy!" Umi was a very good actor, capable of exaggerating her emotions without making it look like she was really pretending to. "To hear it be said that my one true desire is bared to the entire world to see! The humiliation! The pain! Not to mention the thoughts the girls at the cheering squad will think about me if they ever learn I fell in love with the headmaster of the lower grades! Ah, unrequited love is so poignant and ironic!"
Impressed with Umi's acting performance, Fuu and Hikaru applauded.
Nova, on the other hand, snickered.
Instantly, Umi was on her. "Unlike you," she said, pointing a finger at Nova as if the pink-haired girl was a snake poised to strike and the finger was a stick posed to kill it. "Who is so engrossed in your sweaty, uncultured tomboyish games, that you haven't had the time to find yourself a boy to become your inspiration?"
"Oh, I do have an inspirational love!" Nova said, grinning.
"Oh, yeah?" Umi scoffed. "Tell it, then."
Nova slyly regarded her indignant friend. "Do you really want to know who it is? You might regret it."
"The nerve! As if you can bring anything against me that will pull me down to such uncultivated levels as yours?" Umi put on her 'defiant' mode, hands on her hips, nose upturned in scorn. "Do your worst, Nova."
"Okay." To Hikaru's puzzlement, Nova turned to her, her elfin face now looking very bedraggled and lonely. "Hikaru-chan," she said softly, taking her sister's wrists in her hands.
"Eh?" Hikaru was very much perplexed at being addressed as Hikaru-chan by her sister. Meanwhile, Mokona had hopped away from Hikaru to Fuu's arms and was now watching the spectacle unfold.
Nova looked so sad, so plaintive, that it was all Hikaru could do not to hug her sister in an attempt to comfort her. "I've been keeping this inside me for so long," the younger Shidou murmured. "Ever since I was born, I've hidden my true emotions from all of you. I've suppressed myself, allowed myself to be so cruel with myself just because I was frightened and confused of what you'd say about me.
"But now, now I can finally tell you the truth." So saying, Nova's hands slipped from Hikaru's wrists to wrap themselves around the latter's slim waist. "I can finally set my heart free by telling you my feelings for you."
"What do you mean by feelings for me?" The poor Hikaru's thoughts were utterly swamped by her sister's strange behavior.
"This." Nova buried her face into her clothes, hugging Hikaru with all the might she could muster in her small frame. "Oh, Hikaru."
"N-Nova!" Hikaru stammered, surprised at her sister's suddenly excessively loving behavior.
"I love you, Hikaru," Nova whimpered. "I love you so much."
"Eeeewww!" Always the prim and cultured socialite, Umi was understandably disgusted. "Yuri!"
For her part, Fuu merely tipped her glasses and said, "This is highly irregular," in a tone that sounded like the sight of Nova telling Hikaru that she really loved her sister was common thought to it.
Hikaru was trying to pry off Nova's very tight and loving embrace. "Hey, Nova!" she exclaimed, face beet red. "L-Let me go! This is embarrassing!"
"What's embarrassing?" innocently asked Nova. "I'm only proclaiming my love for you, Hikaru!"
"That's exactly what's embarrassing! We're both girls, and I'm your sister at that!"
"That shouldn't deter true love!"
"Nova!"
She grinned unrepentantly.
Then Hikaru, seeing Umi almost ready to throw up and Fuu now looking rather concerned, caught on to her twin's scheme. "Done with the acting?" she asked, grimacing.
"Two can play that game," Nova snickered as she disengaged her arms from Hikaru. She meant Umi, who was still nauseated.
"Well, congratulations," came the weak and muttered reply. "You've just gotten your whimper from me."
"Dear sister," Hikaru began sarcastically, "The next time you try that trick, at least give me fair warning. I really thought you were a."
"Queer?" Nova put on the 'despondent' voice she used earlier. "Why, Hikaru? Can't you accept my love for you?"
"I'm going to tell you to Mama!" the elder Shidou threatened.
"Tattletale!" returned her twin.
"Have you ever wondered," Fuu commented, "How we all come here to have a serious discussion, but it always ends up like this?"
The girls all looked at each other and began to laugh.