by Ahiko aka sakuramimato
Disclaimer: Characters are Akiyoshi Hongo's.
I don't know what will happen later but...
Movement II
'What on Earth?' Mimi's eyes narrowed as she heard the sound of a guitar playing from downstairs. She followed the music downstairs and noticed that Yama-chan was around the corner, sitting on the couch in the living room with the guitar in his hands. 'He's quite good with it.'
'He said that he wasn't a guitarist, but he could at least play some music. Lucky!' she envied his talent as she continued to listen, trying to take in all of the melodies he was randomly strumming.
"Hey! Do you want to try to vocal together?" he asked, resting his fingers on the guitar strings to stop them from vibrating the last chord he'd played. He noticed her hiding and wondered what kind of talent he'd have to deal with. Mimi's hair stood on end and after regaining her composure, she peeked over the corner of the wall and gave a forced smile as her face turned red. She gave a nod and walked in front of him and waited for him to strum a few bars.
'Maybe, with this we can win...?' she thought to herself as she took a breath.
"..." Yama-chan let a chord ring out after she'd finished singing and left her in silence for a moment. 'She's not all too bad... a little high, though.'
He rejected his observation and plastered a sinister grin on his face even though he was well satisfied with her performance. "Bad. You won't make it."
Mimi felt faint and dropped to floor, supporting herself up with her arms and felt the color flushing from her face. 'We can't...'
She slumped forward and closed her eyes, trying to block out Yama-chan's biting words. 'There was one time I made Mikku-chan laugh out loud.'
"But I want to be the vocalist..." she said, her face growing red after finishing the song; the karaoke microphone in her hands.
Michael slouched back into the cushion booth in the karaoke booth trying to restrain himself. "Hahahahaha Stop it."
"Do you really think you can win like that...?" Yama-chan asked her, pulling her back to reality, as he stared at her from behind with cold, emotionless eyes.
Mimi turned around to face him and fought back at his words, trying her best to hold back the tears that were forming in the corners of her eyes. She put a finger out to him. "I do think so!"
Yama-chan's eyes grew wide at her proclamation and he turned his head away from her to hide his shock. Mimi grinned and pulled her arms down to her sides with her hands closed to a tight fist in front of her chest like a karate student preparing to spar, a glint of determination was visible in her eyes. "Because I'll definitely make up with him. Mikku-chan is also waiting for me, I believe so."
"You..." Yama-chan turned his head and made contact with her eyes for a brief second, giving her a cold gaze and quickly averted his eyes, returning his attention to taking the guitar strap off from around him. "...are hurting yourself."
Mimi's eyes grew wide at his words and the cold glare he'd given her seared into her mind.
"Love is blind, eh. Believe it or not, you're an idiot." he continued, the guitar strap now off, and he slowly made his way up from the couch.
"Take all things into consideration, and look at the people like they have the intention to hurt you."
"That is why..." he set the guitar standing with the support of the couch. He grabbed the heart-stricken Mimi from behind and, in a fluid motion, slipped his hand up underneath her sweater as he held her other hand in his wrist to keep her from resisting. "Let's practice breathing in from the diaphragm together. Try seeing if I have the intention to hurt you, yeah?"
He forced a kiss onto her cheek as he groped her breast in his hand, trying to make his way underneath her bra. She shrieked and tried struggling free from his grasp after slowly realizing that he was trying to take advantage of her but found that it was useless; his grasp on her was too strong, and with him behind her, he pretty much held her captive under his broad, powerful frame. She was beginning to shudder under his hold on her as his mischievous hand enjoyed the contact with her chest. "Nooooo---o!"
Mimi was panicking and tried any way she could to break free of his grasp. While Yama-chan was trying to sneak a kiss onto her lips, a sharp crack beneath them caught their attention and the struggle halted.
Noticing a difference in elevation between her feet, Mimi moved her foot to the side. "Ah----"
A guitar pick that Yama-kun had used with his guitar was broken at the end with parts of the break chipped off in between.
Mimi bit her lip and tried forcing tears back as she subconsciously took a step back, forgetting that Yama-kun had been taking advantage of her, and panicked at the broken property (his hand still rested on her chest). "Oh no! I did it."
'The intention to hurt me?' Mimi repeated what Yama-kun told her earlier on as they were walking through the busy intersections of the urban Odaiba District.
'It's not like that, right...?' she asked herself, glancing behind her to find Yama-kun closely walking by her side.
After Mimi had panicked over breaking Yama-kun's guitar pick, he gave in to her apologies and agreed to let her buy him a new one even though he'd refused to let her buy him a new one many times. The city was flooded with people doing last-minute Christmas shopping and decorated with Christmas decor in every window shop including the television broadcasts on the large TV screens off of the sides of some company buildings.
"All your fault, Yama-kun." Mimi said. She was reading the package she'd bought with the guitar pick she owed Yama-kun, wondering why it had cost so much.
"Yeah, yeah." Yama-kun replied, not seeming to care.
"Mimi!"
Mimi turned her head to the crosswalk before them and noticed two of her classmates motioning for her to hurry to them. "Hikari, Miyako!"
"Yo!" a purple-haired girl said, giving her a wave. Her eyes shifted from Mimi to the mysterious guy that was closely following her and her mind raced to conclusions. A wide perverted smile spread across her face as she leaned a little forward to get her head down to Mimi's eye level. "Wha-a-aat? A new boyfriend? Isn't he cool?"
"N...No..." Mimi replied giving Miyako a weak smile at the ridiculous remark.
"Cheh." Yama-kun scoffed at the assumption and turned away.
"It's right of you to break up with Michael-san!" Miyako continued, giving her a thumbs-up. "No matter how popular a band is, if the female lead is bad, it's nothing but mere playing."
"Tha... That is..." Mimi's eyes grew and began to fill with worry as Miyako continued on. "Erh..."
"Great, isn't it? To have slept with someone once. You can boast it. Other than that..." hearing those words, Mimi's face blushed deeply and she could do nothing but to lower her head to keep the others from seeing her embarrassment.
"You, what's your name?" Miyako asked, changing her attention from Mimi to Yama-kun. A wide grin spread across her face. "Want to play with us?"
Yama-kun turned his head slightly and only responded with an even darker look in his eyes than when he talked to Mimi about her childish fantasies.
"If you..." Miyako continued, inching herself closer to Yama-kun. Mimi couldn't take the humiliation and was pushed aside by a rude pedestrian who wanted to cross the street. The light had turned green and Mimi only took the shove as a chance to escape and began to cross the intersection.
"Mimi!" a voice yelled out to her and she felt herself being forced back. She lifted her hand near her and noticed that someone was holding her by the wrist. Looking back, she met eyes with the sharp blue eyes that burned into her fears; those brilliant blue eyes. Yama-kun stepped away from the obnoxious girls and pulled himself towards Mimi, rest his hands on the sides of her face and inched his face to Mimi's until their lips touched. Motion between the two seemed to stop and only the passion and strength Yama-kun placed onto Mimi's lips filtered all of the noise around them; something inside Mimi had died up to this point. Miyako and Hikari stood in shock at the end of the sidewalk as they witnessed the scene right before their eyes.
"That's what's going on." Yama-kun stated after he broke his kiss from the shocked Mimi and pulled her close to him, slowly tracing his finger along Mimi's lower lip. He stared at the girls stranded on the sidewalk with his cold, stoic eyes. "Sorry, sisters..."
"Wha... what was that?" Miyako asked, dumbfounded at what she had witnessed.
Hikari shivered. "Such violence."
Miyako watched as Yama-kun pulled Mimi past the honking horns and the red light of their crosswalk signal. "But I feel like I've seen that guy somewhere before."
After feeling as if he'd pulled Mimi far enough from the two annoying girls to safety, he stopped and turned to Mimi, giving her a weak grin. "Sorry, all of a sudden. But hey, it was just a kiss..."
He let go of Mimi's hand, and it lifelessly dropped to her side. Seconds later, the weak smile he'd given her in apology was met with a blow and a sting from Mimi's slap. He stepped away from her and tended to where she hit him. "Wha..."
After brushing the pain from her slap, he turned to her and froze as his eyes widened. "What are you crying for?"
Tears streamed down Mimi's face and she stared blankly forward, the scene at the intersection replaying constantly in her mind. "First kiss..." (A/N: In Japan, it's very uncommon to see people kissing in public and is even looked down upon by the older generations. First kisses are also significant... characters usually reserve their first kiss for someone very important to them)
Her voice was barely audible, taking Yama-kun a while to decipher what she'd said. He stood silent after making a realization, having trouble thinking of how to respond. "Don't tell me you are... a virgin...?"
Mimi jerked her head to the side at hearing that word, trying to hide the deeply embarrassed expression on her face and rubbed forcefully at her lips with the back of her hand.
"And you let a male stranger into your house?" Yama-kun asked, his eyes growing wide at his recollection. He smiled mischievously and gave her an odd look. "That is a surprise!"
"I had those experiences before! But I escaped because of shock..." Mimi replied after recalling all of the times she'd been cornered at school and guys had forced themselves onto her but she resisted and ran away. She turned to Yama-kun. "Laugh if you want! No matter what, I am a virgin. And my singing is bad."
The playful look in Yama-kun's eyes vanished and grew serious after she'd confessed. He stepped toward her and took her wrists into his hands. Mimi thought he was going to do perverted things to her again and began struggling free from him. "No, don't touch me!"
Finding no amusement from her resistance this time, he let go of her wrists and quickly wrapped his arms behind her, pulling her close to him. His voice took on a different tone, "Ah, enough. It's noisy."
"Is this okay then?" he rested his head onto hers. His voice seemed to have a touch of hurt and regret as Mimi listened, unyielding to his embrace.
"I never thought you would cry because of that kiss. Sorry, and..." he gently tightened his embrace slightly. "Actually..."
"I like your songs." hearing this, Mimi felt a sharp pain in her heart and gasped, unconsciously taking a quick inhale to soothe the pain. She closed her hands onto his shirt, clutching at it in her fists as she buried her face into them. Tears began forcing themselves as he continued, "Even though I said it was bad..."
"It's pure." Mimi gave a slight whimper and gave in, no longer able to fight back the tears Yama-kun's words were pulling out of her. Yama-kun embraced her tighter, trying to remove some of the pain from her suffering.
'Not even Mikku-chan had said that to me before.'
'What kind of person is this Yama-kun?'
"What do you think of the name 'Hei' as our band name? It will bring people together." Mimi asked Yama-kun as they were sitting in her living room, rehearsing a vocal together. (A/N: This is a pun on words. hei へい・兵 literally means "get together," but can also be used phonetically as hei ヘイ, which is the English equivalent of "Hey!")
"What is that? Sounds weird..." Yama-kun furrowed his brow at her suggestion and gave a slight chuckle.
Mimi smiled and lay down on the floor in front of where he sat with his guitar; she rested her hands behind her head to cushion it like a pillow. "Fine then."
"You know, I chased after Mikku-chan's band all the time." she randomly stated as Yama-kun continued playing some soft tunes. "On the day I met Yama-kun I was also waiting for Mikku-chan outside Odaiba High. Ehehe."
She gave him an embarrassed smile, and his playing grew a little louder, in an attempt to flood her words out. "After I've gone back from chasing though..."
"For one year, we've been attached, all lovey dovey, the taste of true love... Even though everyone said bad things about Mikku-chan. We ate lunch together, he taught me guitar, we were very happy."
I love you.
"That was Michael-chan..." Mimi finished, letting out a sigh and blinked as she stared at the ceiling.
Yama-kun dropped his head and stopped playing, his gaze staring as if out to nowhere. "I want to believe that..."
"Heh! No way..." he quickly responded with a smirk.
Mimi furrowed her brow. "Nyeh."
"But..." he picked up his guitar and rested his fingers on the strings, lightly picking at them, but keeping from playing too loudly. "If I were you, I would just escape."
"Whatever happens... I wish that Mimi would stay the way she is." Mimi turned her head to him, confusion in her eyes. 'Yama-kun...'
'Who is Yama-kun actually...?' the thought had been bothering Mimi throughout the rest of the day and she wasn't able to sleep because of it. 'I want to know more.'
Her apartment was pitch black, but she found herself in the living room, looming over the couch where Yama-kun lay snoring lightly in a deep sleep. 'Mimi! This is not good, stop it.' her thoughts fought with her actions as she had begun to reach her hand out to Yama-kun's unconscious body.
'But, I can't bear it!' she restrained herself and stepped closer to him, observing his seemingly angelic face with his misplaced hair. She brushed a strand of his hair from his face and stepped back to smile at how innocent and gentle he looked while he slept. As she took that step back, she felt her foot hit something and found out that it was his jacket. Glancing back at Yama-kun to see if she had awoken him, he was still sleeping soundly. She quietly knelt to the floor next to the couch and took the jacket in her hands, rummaging through it until her fingers caught some thin hard plastic.
'Driver's license...?' she wondered as she pulled it closer to her face, trying to decipher the characters written on it. Her eyes widened. 'Yamato?'
'They call him Yamato, huh...' Mimi wondered, moving her gaze from the license to Yamato's sleeping face, comparing the two. 'Age 17. One year older than me.'
"What a coincidence..." she muttered softly. 'Is this really the Ishida Yamato I knew from so long ago?'
'I wonder what Yama-kun does...?' she continued to question his identity, turning the license around in her hands to look at all sides. 'There's no way to tell from this.'
She glanced at the guitar propped up against the couch. 'Probably something with music, but...?'
"Ugh..." Yamato grunted and Mimi's eyes widened at the break in the silence. Yamato rolled over in sleep, facing her and subconsciously grabbed her by the arm, pulling her to him and hugging her in his sleep.
'Ah...' Mimi moved to his unconscious movements making sure not to wake him from his sleep, still kneeling on the floor as he held her in his arms over the edge of the couch. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and rested his head next to hers, inhaling the scent of her cleaned hair.
"Eek..." her face flared up in embarrassment at his forward actions even while sleeping. "Yama-kun, you sleepy head..."
"Sora..."
'Eh... Sora?' her ear had been right next to his mouth as he let that name out with a sigh. She clasped her hands together to her chest and felt something stir deep inside her as her eyes glazed while she glanced over Yamato sleeping beside her. His light breathing broke through the silence and she felt even more uncomfortable with him holding her in his sleep even more than she ever had before.
'A girl...?'
Author's Note: Hehe. >:) The next update is the finale. It'll be up around October 16. Stay tuned! ―.阿彦