A/N - I've noticed some major flaws in my previous chapters that I intend to revise eventually. But for now, I'll just continue to post chapters until the story is complete, despite the fact that only a handful of people seem to be actually reading it.


Part Seven - November

How does one look past a lie?


The summer came and went before they saw each other again. November was upon her before she could blink. It seemed now that the days of her life were falling away faster than the dying leaves. But they were just dry husks of days now, propelled on by a wind she had no control over, and leading up to a winter who's chill she could already feel gathering in her toes and fingertips. Seventeen was already halfway over, and when Eighteen came, marriage would come with it.

And Hiroaki was gone.

She knew she shouldn't have lied to him, but she'd convinced herself that it wasn't lying if he never asked. She always knew that ideology would fall to pieces eventually, but she didn't want him to be the one who got hurt. And now, how could she expect him to forgive her? How could she possibly explain how badly she treated those she cared about the most?

Did she care for Hiroaki?

It had been growing on her so quietly she hadn't realized it at first, but now it was undeniable. When had he become important to her? Why was November colder than she ever remembered? But it didn't matter anymore now. He was never coming back. Her attempts to conceal the truth had been her undoing. In his eyes, she'd forever be a liar. And maybe she was.

She huddled into her coat and opened the diner door. A current of welcome, warm air hit her and she savored it. Her eyes searched the room for a place to sit, and then they fell on him. Her heart lurched, and she had a terrible desire to just run out of the restaurant and pretend she'd never seen him. But then he looked up, as if he felt her eyes, and instantly their gazes locked. Tongue-tied didn't even begin to describe how she felt.

As if on their own volition, her feet carried her over to his table. She stopped in front of him, and he eyed her expectantly. His captivating brown eyes were narrowed dangerously.

"May I sit here?" She squeaked.

"If you must," His voice was cold. So cold that she nearly turned tail and ran.

She didn't meet his glaring eyes as she slid into the booth. He was sitting with his coat still on and a bowl of steaming, reddish colored soup in front of him. He looked weary, as if he hadn't slept properly for many nights, but there was also something lethal about him. It was coiled just beneath the surface, ready to strike out at her if she didn't play her cards carefully.

"So you're not through messing with me yet are you, Mademoiselle?" He was using her own French against her, to mock her and distance himself. She almost asked him, how he'd learned the word, but she knew he wasn't in the mood for a subject change.

"I was never messing with you, Hiroaki," She said softly, "You've got to believe me."

He scoffed and stirred his soup absently, watching it swirl helplessly. He suddenly wasn't hungry anymore, "Dammit Suko, you have a fiancé."

"Yes," She replied evenly, without a hint of emotion, even though she was trembling inside.

He set down the spoon with a startling clank and leaned across the table, speaking in a low, venomous voice, "Care to tell me why you didn't mention that sooner?"

"I . . ." She stuttered and looked around, realizing that they were indeed getting a lot of attention from other tables. She lowered her voice to a whisper and finished shakily, "I didn't think it would be important."

"Oh, so it's not important that you've been making me feel . . ." He paused and gave her an inexplicable look of pain and anger, "Making me feel as if you might be mine, when you had a fiancé the whole time. It's bad enough that you're only seventeen years old."

"I didn't mean to let it go this far," She murmured, stunned by his confession as much as his tone, "I had no idea things between us would become what they are."

"And what exactly do you think is going on between us, because I've obviously been thinking wrong," He demanded.

"I don't know," That was all she said. It hung in the silence between them. She knew it wasn't enough.

Under different circumstances they never would have met, but they had, and now nothing was in their control anymore. They could pretend they knew what they were doing all they wanted, but the truth was far less rational. It was like explaining why skydivers have urges to jump out of planes. Veering off course just to feel the rapid thump of exhilarating trepidation building in one's chest, wild eyed and out of control.

"Well neither do I," He scowled into his untouched soup, determined not to fall helpless to those eyes, "And I have half a mind to take you back to school."

"Why don't you try it?" She shrugged out of her coat and slumped back into the booth defiantly. She knew it was rather childish of her, but she didn't care, "I dare you."

"You know what you're problem is?" He jabbed his spoon at her, as if he was making a denouncing accusation, "You just don't like anybody telling you what to do."

"Yes," She said matter-of-factly, " Doesn't everybody?"

"Well, to some extent I suppose," He allowed her that much. He regarded her thoughtfully, and she squirmed under his gaze, "But I've never met anyone as contrary as you."

"You'd be contrary too if people were always treating you like property," She said it with a light scowl and crossed her arms over her chest, half serious and pouting, but it was the truest thing she'd ever said. That sad eventuality of her life was as unescapable as the coming winter.

"It's because you're beautiful," His tone took a surprising turn for sober, and she balked. Was that sympathy in his eyes?

She tried to read his face for some indication of his thoughts, but those eyes held a piercing sobriety that was almost frightening. He understood something that she was only beginning to comprehend, and trying to follow him was hopeless. For the first time ever she became aware of the fact that he was much more worldly that her, and she didn't know if that notion was more comforting or irritating. He was taking pity on her the way an adult would take pity on a child who doesn't know any better.

"What?" He could feel her searching him for the answers to a question she could only begin to ask, so he gave her clarity.

"People always think they can own beautiful things," He murmured in an undertone like a man confessing before a priest, "Like paintings, and exotic animals, and girls like you. You match their fancy settings and look perfect in their pretty clothes, so they think you're only fit to be bought, traded and fought over."

Her eyes widened in disbelief, and all the words she had wanted to say shattered before they reached her lips. He had just ripped the mask off the truth and shoved it painfully into her face. There it was, laid out in black and white, like a photograph. A photograph that embodied all the thousands of words that had inhabited the darkest places of her mind as long as she could remember. She lived her life in a glass house of denial. Perhaps there was indeed a monster under her bed, but if she never looked she'd never have to know. Hiroaki's words forced her to look, and what she saw was ugly.

She didn't know what it was, but everything Hiroaki said or did forced her to examine everything about herself, and more and more, she began to discover how deplorable her life had become. She didn't want to look, but something compelled her to keep returning to the mirror he presented. How did she end up like this, and what could he possibly see in her? How could he ever hope to fix her?

"How did you know that?" She whispered.

"I notice things," He spoke quietly in that serious tone that transfixed her helplessly, "Women were always commodities to my father. I was never particularly attractive myself, so I got the other end of the deal. Nobody cared what happened to me because I'd never be worth selling, but I also got unlimited freedom."

"I wouldn't say you are unattractive, Hiroaki," He was acutely aware of her sizing him up with those bottomless eyes, "I definitely wouldn't keep seeking you out if you were ugly."

"Yes, you keep returning to me, and I'm not strong enough to turn you away," He sighed and looked away, staring out the diner windows as if they held all the answers, "You will be the death of me."

Then his gaze swung back to meet hers head on. There was an unspoken challenge in that darkness. He wanted her to prove that his words were wrong. But she couldn't do that. Beneath her bewitching appearance she was a killer and a liar, and they both knew it.

"Perhaps," She simpered wolfishly, "How badly do you want to die?"

"I don't know," His hands flew out and captured hers, "It seems I don't know anything anymore."

A torrent of shivers ran though her at his touch, and the feeling only intensified when she saw the look in his eyes. A deep sincerity flecked with sparkles of desire, and something else she couldn't identify. The last time he'd done that she hadn't felt the heat in her veins and the fluttering in her stomach that she was feeling now. This disease was definitely getting worse.

She shivered and surrendered to the urge to lean closer to him, "And what would you have me say Monsieur?"

"Tell me this is silly, and I haven't got a chance with you," He growled dangerously, but she could hear the plea in his voice, "Tell me to leave you alone."

He had all but admitted to being attracted to her, and she was soaking it up like sunlight on a withered plant. It is a heady experience to know that one is wanted, and she relished in the powerful feeling that flooded through her. She didn't need more attention from the opposite sex, but she always craved it anyway, and Hiroaki had proved to be the perfect outlet. It was cruel and hurtful, and there had to be something wrong with her, but it wasn't as if there wasn't any reciprocation on her part. He friends would tell her it was just as bad as dating a teacher. He wasn't her teacher, so it couldn't be that bad. But he wasn't her fiancé either.

"I'd tell you but we'd both know I don't mean it, so I hardly see the point," She tossed her hair over her shoulder, drunk on this new feeling.

With that she stood up, grabbed her things and sauntered away. She grinned to herself when she heard him tripping fanatically out of the booth after her. It was one of those rare times she was grateful to be small. She could certainly outmaneuver him and disappear into a crowd if she wanted if she wanted. Not that she wouldn't let him catch her of course.

She slid through the doors, dodged past a few bewildered people, and had only just made it past the diner windows when he caught up with her. He caught her by the arm and pulled her back towards him. She put up a bit of a feeble struggle, but in the end, she allowed him to pull her closer until she was level with his eyes.

A ravenous wind raced through the city streets like a pack of wolves. Chills tore at her ears and cheeks, pinching a slight rosy hue into them. He resisted the cold better than her. He didn't even seem to notice the icy gusts running furrows through his hairs. His eyes were intent on her and her alone. The misty puffs of condensation from his breath mingled with her own.

"What did you mean by that?" He demanded in an unmistakably firm voice. There was no way she could pretend she didn't remember or didn't care.

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" She countered. She was very aware of how provoking she was being, but the confrontation was exhilarating. A spark of heat in this paralyzing cold.

"Why do you always answer my questions with questions?" He snapped. Apparently he didn't find her games any amount of fun anymore, which was a shame, because she wasn't going to cooperate so easily.

"Why do you always answer my questions with questions?" Was her ready response.

"Now you're just trying to change the subject," His voice was still surprisingly level. After receiving a look from a passing couple, he relinquished her arm slightly.

"Oh am I?" She raised that eyebrow again, so unconsciously tempting.

"Yes!" He hissed, "Would you stop doing that?"

"Doing what?" She absently licked her lips and everything he had just been thinking flooded out of his head in a split second.

"Teasing me," He croaked weakly.

"Don't be silly," She was also speaking differently now, gravelly and soft at the same time, "It's only teasing if I don't intend to finish was I started."

He gaped at her like a beached fish and managed to force out a few strangled words, "You can't possibly . . . I, we, you . . . you're getting married!"

"I believe you've already reminded me once this afternoon Monsieur Ishida," Her heated fingertips traced over his lips, closing his mouth and setting his nerves on fire.

"Maybe I just need to remind myself," He muttered.

And then something happened that neither of them could explain. Looking back on it neither Natsuko, nor Hiroaki could ever say who started it. Everything they'd been holding back exploded, like a shaken bottle of soda. She stood up on her tiptoes, snaking her arms around his shoulders to pull him closer. His cupped her chin in his hands and dipped his head, driven by the intoxicating feel of her body pressed against his.

He had just the faintest taste of her lips on his before the rude interruption.

"Hiroaki!" Someone shouted.

At the sound of his name he jerked back and looked around. Natsuko hastily sprang away from him, cheeks burning with more than just the cold.

The man approaching them was about Hiroaki's age with a head full of thick black hair that fell in every direction. His eyes were dark and piercing, but there was a humorous light in them that spoke of a fun loving spirit. He was grinning and racing toward them. Under any other circumstances Hiroaki would have been glad to see his friend, but not when he'd been so close slaking some of the hunger that was eating him alive. Now she was off the hook, and his blood was still boiling.

"Hey, Susumu," Hiroaki greeted his friend and wearily conceded that he had just missed his chance with Natsuko, "How's it going?"

"Oh. Can't complain," The other man's laughing eyes suddenly fell on Natsuko, as if he was just noticing her, and studied her with intense interest. He'd seen that Hiroaki was standing with a woman from a distance, but he hadn't been paying her much attention. Upon seeing her face to face his curiosity was piqued. She was lovely, tiny and curvy, and a teenager. What was Hiroaki doing with her? She couldn't been a relation. Relations didn't do what he'd seen them just about to do.

"So Ishida, who's your pretty little friend?" He purred teasingly.

Hiroaki rolled his eyes and turned to address the girl first, "Natsuko, this is Susumu Yagami. Sometimes I'm embarrassed to call him my friend. Susumu this is Natsuko."

"Pleased to meet you," She murmured in a thick, accented voice.

"Likewise," Susumu leered flirtatiously. It wasn't so much that he wanted to hit on her, but he was testing to see how far he could push before Hiroaki got territorial. His friend's reaction would tell him a lot more than any amount of words. Besides, she was pretty, and he could never not be charming around pretty girls.

Natsuko flushed an even deeper shade of red when he experimentally leaned closer to her. Invading her personal space and laying on the suave. He knew he was good looking, and his attention was beginning to fluster her. Hiroaki didn't like it, but he knew Susumu was testing him. He could not overreact, or the questions would never end.

"Leave her alone Susumu," He spoke with as much control as he could command, but he couldn't keep the slightly annoyed edge out of his voice.

"You know I was just playing around, Hiroaki. I like my women brown-eyed and full-blooded oriental. You on the other hand . . ." His dark eyes darted mischievously between her and Hiroaki, "So what are you two doing out here anyway? Nothing illicit I presume."

"We were just having a conversation," Hiroaki retorted defensively, "Which isn't against the law."

"Pretty hard to talk with your lips locked together," Susumu said innocently, "But that's just the direction I saw the 'conversation' going in. You may correct me if I'm wrong."

Neither of them had anything to say to that. He had caught them. Victory was delicious. But then he realized that neither of them were laughing at his sparkling wit, and neither of them were admitting to anything. Something told him that perhaps the situation he'd walked into was much more sticky than he thought. The girl shot a loaded look at Hiroaki which he returned before bringing his eyes back to his friend.

"Who are you going to tell?" He asked.

"I . . ." Susumu stuttered, suddenly very ashamed of exposing them, "Come to think of it, I don't even know what I really saw. Can't tell anybody anything if I didn't see anything."

Natsuko smiled softly and Susumu had to admit that her eyes were rather entrancing, for a slippy foreign girl, "I think I'll leave you two now. I should be heading home anyway."

She started to walk away, but Hiroaki darted after her. Susumu's eyebrows shot up into his hairline when he saw the fervent looks they exchanged. Maybe they didn't quite know how to handle their attraction, but their unspoken communication was excellent. She slowed to a stop when he put a hand on her shoulder.

Hiroaki studied her face before he spoke, and that study he found was mostly limited to her mouth. Her round, fresh-picked cherry mouth. He wanted to kiss her. Hell, he wanted to do a lot more than kiss her, but he couldn't do anything with Susumu watching them. He thought one kiss would cure him, but now that little taste of her would never be enough.

He settled for pulling her into his chest so that he could whisper in her ear without being overheard. She did not resist, so he settled his arms around her and carefully tucked her hair behind her ear. He fought the urge to inhale the scent of it, and spoke, in a voice so low that the vibrations carried through her bones.

"I just want you to know that I will not sit idly by while you toy with me," His lips brushed against the shell of her ear as he spoke, and the feeling nearly drove both of them out of their minds, "I want you, and I don't even care how old you are anymore. But you have to make up you mind because I don't do adultery."

But that was a lie. For her, he would do anything, and it was beginning to scare him. For the sake of his own sanity she could never know that.

"You don't even realize what you're doing to me," He continued, "You're not even out of highschool. How could you possibly realize? You just enjoy toying with me, don't you?."

"Oh really," Her eyes narrowed dangerously, and he could almost feel her molten anger, "And who says I would even consider what you are suggesting? You've got a lot of nerve patronizing me Mr. Pure and Holy! I'm not an ignorant little girl, and I won't have you treating me like one!" Her handle on Japanese was teetering perilously with every word she spoke, and finally she gave up even trying. Her next words were a wrathful barrage of indecipherable French.

He wanted to smack her, but he still had the equally overpowering urge to kiss her. She was sexy when she was angry, and he was finding it increasingly harder to concentrate. Whenever they even came near each other emotions seemed to spark and flare uncontrollably, like a horrible parasitic outbreak, killing everything in sight. Now they were burning alive, and their bodies could no longer contain the heat. If this argument erupted past a certain point, he would either drag her off to bed, or murder her, or maybe both, and he couldn't explain why.

"You're wrong," He caught her tiny wrist in his hand, forcing her to look him in the eyes while he tried to explain to her, "Regardless of how much we want to get around it, you are just a girl. But nothing I can say will make you see that."

She tried to spin away from him, but he held on, gentle to make sure he didn't hurt her, but firm enough that she couldn't evade. He knew it was unfair of him to use his strength against her, but it was also unfair of her to manipulate him in the way she was. When she realized that she could not struggle out of his grasp, she made a noise of frustration and wheeled on him, eyes blazing.

"Let go of me," She snarled in a low voice.

She couldn't have been more serious. There was something profoundly terrified in her eyes now. She tried to hide it behind anger and indignation, but he was acutely aware of her body language. He could feel her slight tremble a see the panic in her dilated pupils. She was afraid, and her calm demand was her last defense. If he tried to overpower her now, she would never trust him again.

With an unreadable expression Hiroaki released her, "As you wish."

She jumped back immediately and took off down the street, disappearing into the collage of black and grey coats. The Oikawas' apartment was two and half blocks away, and she wouldn't stop running until she got there. The sky was a grey overcast, and the searing November wind was still howling through the city. As the first snowflakes began to fall, he stuffed his hands into his pockets, numb to the cold.

She never looked back, and he made no attempt to follow.