One Shot:
I Don't Get It
Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King or any of its characters.
Summary: Even after years of knowing her, Horohoro still couldn't understand why Tamao loved Yoh.
It was official; Yoh and Anna were getting married three weeks from that day.
In a way, she guessed she should have expected it. After all, it was obvious that Yoh only loved Anna, and nobody else. But deep inside, she never stopped hoping that maybe… one day, he would notice her. And that he would realize that the feelings that she had for him were stronger than anything she'd ever felt before.
The announcement that he and Anna made the day before, however, proved that all of that had only been her wishful daydreams. After that event, she simply had to stop thinking that Yoh would have any feelings for her at all.
Not only was that impossible to happen, it would also be wrong for her to think of something like that. Even though her love for Yoh was strong, Anna's was, without a doubt, stronger.
That too, she supposed, was to be expected. Anna had been with Yoh since forever, through good and bad times. She, however, never actually did anything. All she did was watch him, admire him and give him encouragement which, now that she thought about it, perhaps didn't mean much at all.
All the time, she was too shy to confess her feelings to him.
Maybe she should have done it, after all. If she had done it, even if she'd been rejected, at least she would be able to tell herself that she'd tried.
But reality wasn't that kind. She never confessed to him at all. Each time that she tried to do so, the sight of Yoh would freeze her, and she wouldn't be able to move until he had gone somewhere else.
She was so pathetic… no wonder no one had been interested in her.
"Ouch!"
Tamao winced as blood came out from one of her fingers; a result of her accidentally cutting herself with the knife that she'd been using to chop some vegetables for dinner.
Tamao moved her hand away from the vegetables in a hurry; afraid that the blood would spill on the vegetables, all while searching for something that she could wipe her blood with.
Where was that piece of cloth that was always in the kitchen, anyway? At this rate, the only way she could stop the bleeding was by pouring water all over her cut… but that would hurt a lot, wouldn't it?
Still, she had no other choice.
Shaking a bit, she turned the kitchen tap on, and as the water gushed out of it, she put her hand right in the middle of it.
Again, she winced. She didn't expect it to hurt so much!
"What in the world are you doing?" a voice from behind her exclaimed, and she could hear footsteps running towards her. Before she could grasp what happened, someone had pulled her hand away from the kitchen tap and bandaged the cut with a piece of cloth instead.
"Horohoro-kun!" she said in surprise when she saw the spiky-haired Ainu looking at her finger, worry evident on his face.
He didn't say anything… he just stared at her, a frown on his face. Tamao found herself looking away from him shyly. Even though she didn't do anything to him, it felt weird that he suddenly appeared in front of her like that… it was almost frightening.
In her opinion, Horohoro had always been a person who always had something to say, and he was sort of funny, too, in his own sort of way. But she had never really taken the time to know him well... perhaps it was because their personalities clashed. Horohoro could never shut up while Tamao could never find anything interesting to say… they just didn't get along that well.
It felt odd… the person in front of her wasn't saying anything. He simply stared at her for a long time, as if he could read through her mind.
"Um… Horohoro-kun?"
"Yeah?"
"I… I think you can let go now," she said finally, her face as red as a beetroot.
Tamao thought that a person's face couldn't possibly become any redder than hers at that moment, but she was wrong. As Horohoro quickly let go of her hand, he flushed a deep shade of red and turned away from her; much like what she'd done to him earlier.
"Well… sorry about that," he apologized, and she nodded.
As usual, she couldn't find anything to say, but to her surprise, Horohoro seemed to not have any particular subject in mind either. He kept on opening his mouth as if to say something, but then quickly close his mouth, dismissing whatever thought that he had in his mind.
"So…" Horohoro said after an awkward moment of silence, "Yoh and Anna are getting married, huh?"
There it was… that subject that she'd been trying so hard to avoid. Out of all the things that he could talk about, why did he decide that it was the best one to talk about then?
"Well, yes… I think Anna-san is really excited about it. She didn't tell anyone about it, but I found her flipping through some wedding magazines last night…"
Horohoro noticed her change of voice. She pretended that she was excited when she was talking about it, but it had sounded rather forced. He knew that she desperately wanted to let the subject out of her mind, but he chose not to comply.
"Why do you like him so much anyway?" he asked, causing Tamao to glance at him in surprise.
"W-Who?" she asked him back.
"Yoh, of course… It's obvious that he only thinks about Anna. Why do you still love him?"
"I…" Tamao hesitated, not very sure of the answer herself. Why did she love Yoh? Even when she found out that he loves Anna, why did she never give up on him until the very end?
"Perhaps it's because of Yoh-sama's spirit. He never seemed to give up… no matter how hopeless the situation may be. I guess I just… love him for that," she confessed.
"Is that really love, or is that just admiration?" Horohoro questioned.
Tamao kept silent. She knew that it was just admiration… but there was something else that made her deeply care for Yoh. Something else that she hadn't told Horohoro yet.
"And when I was little, he seemed to be the only one who cared about me."
Nobody said anything for a while, and Tamao was just about to say that she needed to continue cooking before Horohoro interrupted her.
"I guess I still don't get it."
Tamao shot him a questioning look, and he sighed.
"If you love him because he cares about you, would you love another person if he cares about you too?" Tamao couldn't find the right answer for that question, so she thought about it for a while. Would she fall for another person other than Yoh, if he cared about her too?
"Because I know that Yoh isn't the only one who cares about you," Horohoro mumbled as he walked out of the kitchen, "I do, too."
He said the last three words barely above a whisper, and it took a while for Tamao to understand what he was talking about. When she did, though, her eyes widened in surprise and she quickly turned to look at him, but he was already outside the kitchen.
Slowly, Tamao turned back to face the vegetables, a small smile on her face. Maybe… maybe she wasn't that pathetic after all.
She began chopping the vegetables again. Usually, she would try her best to cook something delicious so Yoh would have a hearty meal. This time, though, she tried her best to cook for an entirely different reason.
Horohoro.
A/N: First attempt at writing a Horohoro/Tamao fic. I hope it wasn't that bad!
R & R please!