A Brisk Morning

Melting To An Embarrassing Shade of Red

That night neither Hitomi nor Van slept well. Haunted by half dreams of their pasts, and memories that they could only half recall, the two teenagers tossed and turned in their respective rooms.

Hitomi dreamt of a world she didn't quite remember, of screaming and yelling, and a boy with garnet eyes. While in the other room Van dreamt of a painful story he only knew half of, a father he couldn't understand and the mother he barely remembered.

The whole world seemed to turn too slow, and the stars wouldn't disappear fast enough as they lay awake, trying to push those thoughts away.

In the morning Van woke up, realizing that because of that, he must have had a little sleep at least. He ran a hand through his unruly hair and started downstairs towards the kitchen. Grabbing a box of cereal, a bowl and some milk he sat down at the table noticing for the first time that Hitomi was sitting there eating pancakes with Marie, they both looked exhausted.

Van guessed by the nearly empty coffee pot that they had been up for a long time, maybe half the night. But he didn't know why.

Hitomi smiled but frowned slightly as she saw no recognition in Van's frozen eyes. It was as though yesterday the frost had thawed and she'd seen spring, just long enough to feel it's warmth, but now old winter was back again with a vengeance. Then his eyes came into focus again and that thought vanished. All three of them sat in silence, munching on their breakfasts, knowing that this would take time. Well, for Marie whatever had happened between the pair seemed okay, even though she was still clueless.

On the drive to school Hitomi and Van joked around a bit, and fought over the radio station, but underneath it, they both knew some was wrong, very wrong. Why couldn't they remember each other, except for little glimpses of their past there was nothing. This was new for them, being friends with no grasping past.

"What happened?" Hitomi asked suddenly.

"What do you mean, what happened?" Van was genuinely confused.

"Why do I... Why can we... sort of remember each other. But not quite..."

Van was silent for a while, pondering to answer the questions, but by the time he was almost ready, they arrived at the school.

"We can talk about this later, all right?" He asked.

"Mmmk..."

During the day the joked around more and more. Millerna saw this as an improvement, and started asking Hitomi questions at lunch.

"So when did it happen?" The young blonde asked Hitomi.

"When did what happen?" Hitomi stared back at Millerna, her green eyes shining innocently.

"When did Van ask you out?"

"Um... Millerna... He didn't."

"What!" Millerna was seriously frustrated. In her mind these two were perfect for each other, there was just something about the pair that made it... right. So, as far as Millerna was concerned, they were just being too blind not to notice what was obvious to everybody else.

"Millerna, I think you're just looking too far into this. Van and I are just friends, and hardly that."

"What do you mean hardly friends? You have half of the same classes and he's always watching you. Furthermore, you both live in the same house!" Millerna exclaimed.

Hitomi hesitated, not sure what to say to calm her best friend down. "Look, I- we just talked, about some stuff from when we were little. That's it. He didn't ask me out, and he isn't going to either." Okay, that went well. It's the truth anyway.

"Uh huh, suuure." Was Millerna's only response as she took a sip of her Grande Mocha Frappucino.

On the other side of the small coffee shop Van and Allen had just walked in. The door clanged shut with the sound of wind chimes, but nobody noticed. While they were standing in the line up Van noticed Hitomi laughing with Millerna, and for a moment in time he couldn't take his eyes off of her. Blushing quickly he turned away. Allen noticed this and tried to steal Van's move... Raising his eyebrow, or at least trying to raise one of them, he looked at his best friend trying to see what was going on with him.

"So you like Hitomi?" Allen asked, when his attempt at telepathy failed.

"No, where would you get that idea?" It was surprising that even though Van's face had now turned completely pink his voice still sounded so calm.

"Uh, dude... You were just like, open-mouth, almost drooling, staring at her."

"What! Why didn't you stop me?" Haha, now he was panicking, just a little.

Allen stared at his normally calm and relaxed friend, and burst out laughing, his golden hair moving with the sound of his voice.

At this Millerna and Hitomi looked up from their coffees and noticed for the first time a very red faced Van and Allen... Who was having the time of his life. Even Millerna had to laugh, Van never blushed. Millerna couldn't believed she'd missed it.

Hitomi got up and walked over to where the boys were standing.

"Van, are you okay? Do you need water or something?" She looked worried, even more worried than she had been last night when Van had blacked out, not that anybody else knew that.

At this Allen was laughing so hard he could hardly breathe and Van just started to turn a darker shade of red.

One of the waitresses gave Hitomi a cup of water to give to Van and another one to give to Allen when he could breathe again.

After everybody had calmed down, Hitomi asked Van what was wrong. He told her that it had just been about a stupid joke that he couldn't remember now. It was obvious that his somewhat childhood friend didn't believe him, but what could he do?