To all the amazement of her family, who slept hard and late most mornings, repeatedly abusing their loud, annoying alarm clocks, Hitomi had consistently been a morning person, waking way before first light. Every school day, without fail, she would wake without the aid of an alarm at 6 AM, pushing her little lithe body up with a small sleepy groan, wrinkling her green sheets into a pool below her torso, and slowly turning, her bare, calloused feet would freeze on the contact of her wooden floors. On days like this day, without the threat of a storm or getting drenched, no matter the fact that it was winter time in Northern Fanelia, Hitomi would go straight for her huge central window, almost spanning from the floor to the ceiling, and release her shutters and glass. A rush of sound and wind would greet her, and she would close her eyes and take deep breaths of the salty Fanelian air, fresh and awakening, and hear the soft crashing of waves against her rocky shores off in the distance.

It was a moment only belonging to her, that her dozing family could not be a part of. It was a singular joy taken, almost a luxury.

As if just waking up, her eyes would always open slowly, and her cheeks would rose, her eyes glimmer, her skin feel a little more elastic. Then coffee would come, showers taken, noises starting, and her daily life would begin.

A Recollection of Forbidden Love

Chapter Three: The Girl

Author: Cev

Editor: LoveWitch

Hitomi always walked with a happy stride early in the morning, down the stairs and cement and adobe of Fanelia, up to the towering (and quite imposing) Escaflowne Academy. Wearing the blazer to keep out the ever-present chill of the early coastal morning hours, Hitomi watched her scenery change with eager eyes as the sun rose on her daily walk. It was a bit longer than most students had to walk, but Hitomi didn't like the idea of being driven to school as Dad always wanted. It gave her some exercise in the track off-season.

Escaflowne Academy was nestled like a castle into the rock and trees of the side of the cliffs. It was linked with long glassed-in passageways high in the stories, connecting the different wings that were spread out high and low on the founded precipice. It was an unusual array and organization of a school, unique and interesting, but also sometimes much harder to navigate through, and was, never-ending, an awe-inspiring piece of architecture. Hitomi was a senior and yet still she had a rush of wonder at the Academy's grandeur and beauty every time she saw it, however cold and old it seemed sometimes.

Just as the Academy came into sight, Yukari Uchida came jogging down a flight of steep stairs lining one particularly steep hill on 3rd street, 3 blocks north of the downtown plaza.

"Rushing as always, you never fail," Hitomi said cheerily as Yukari came sliding to a stop before her relaxed friend. Her fiery red hair gleamed in a messy disheveled frizz in the orange early morning sunlight, and Hitomi affectionately smoothed it down for her.

"What can I say? I'm a creature of habit." Yukari smirked, adjusting the straps of her backpack. The Academy loomed ahead as a small dark castle guarding over the bright Moroccan feel of the adobe and wood of the town. The capital, rich in its early culture, still opened fresh-air markets along the street every morning. People here performed old traditional tasks with the aid of incredibly advanced Gaean technology, well supplied by Fanelia's booming economy and trade. Swords and Kings and such had been centuries and eons and centuries ago, but that old world was never truly forgotten.

Hitomi loved her village, though it really was becoming too large to be called such, but couldn't help but feel the small tinge of wanting to get out and see somewhere else, a feeling gnawing and consuming many of her other senior friends. But unlike them, she held a love for her town that many had oppositely viewed a cage, and would call it home long after she'd made a new one.

"Today seems like an important thing," Hitomi said suddenly as they walked through the morning market, somehow catching the noises with a brighter tone, every action a little more remembered.

Yukari smiled quirkily at her friend. Hitomi always had a way with being a little enchanted in her approaches to life, taking care of the little things as stepping stones to the big picture. "Why's that?" The redhead asked, not really interested in the topic but for conversation's sake.

"Dunno…" Hitomi said, somewhat astonished with her own answer, really only speaking to herself. Yukari knew Hitomi well, too well, she almost thought sometimes, and had a gentle way of asking her questions to help her work through something in her mind, not for Yukari's actual curiosity on the subject but simply because she knew Hitomi needed something to answer to, working it through by saying it out loud. "It's just as if it'll be a day to remember."

Yukari laughed, "With you, Hitomi, everyday has something to remember in it. Like just last week"-Yukari smirked mischievously, and Hitomi groaned-"when you spilled the entire cleaning bucket on Mr. Caldwell! That seemed to be the straw to break his back!"

Hitomi huffed, turning pink in exasperation, "That was not my fault! Allen shoved me purposely so it would happen! I never meant to do anything to that stupid old man!"

"It was still really funny. Oh! I almost forgot to tell you!" Yukari cried.

"What?" Hitomi and Yukari stepped up to the Academy doors, taking one last look in the mirrors.

"They've finally got us an English teacher. Too bad you weren't at school yesterday because of that science field trip"-Hitomi groaned at the mention of the boring biology lecture she had to attend the day before-"this guy's awesome! He's really hot, and incredibly smart. Said he went to Palas University for school, and he's graduated, but he's only 22 years old! Can you believe it? I bet Millerna's already got a plan up her sleeve."

"Really? From Palas…and only 22." Hitomi was puzzled. Usually Gaddess told her everything that went on with new teachers, and he hadn't mentioned it at dinner last night. "Sounds familiar." She whispered to herself, her heart picking up pace. "Palas, only 22. There can't be two of them. Van's just Van, no one else has done what he's done." Hitomi's thoughts were running wild, but she was still walking with Yukari to their first period. English wasn't until later in the day, and she just would find out later if it was really him. She put a hand to her chest.

"Hitomi? You all right?" Yukari asked, opening the door to homeroom and stepping inside.

Hitomi snapped out of her daze, "Yes, I'm fine." She said, "I just need to get a drink of water."

But instead of getting water, she ran down to the English wing, only a flight above her homeroom. She was looking in the windows, trying to seem inconspicuous, when suddenly the fire alarm went off.

"THIS IS A FIRE DRILL. PLEASE EXIT TO YOUR NEAREST OUTSIDE STAIRWELL, ONTO THE CLIFF LEDGE AND GRASS," The principal's secretary announced.

Hitomi was suddenly bombarded with rushing people, talking and shouting in a haze. Teachers came out to move them along. A tall black-haired man, one she'd never seen before, in a brown suit, was filing people along and yelling out orders. She shoved her way towards him, getting slightly squished. His hair was slicked back, something Van never bothered with, and the suit didn't fit what Van would wear, but that was the teacher, coming out of Mr. Caldwell's old room, the one that Yukari had told her about. The squareness of his shoulders, something of his gait down the hallway in the crowd of people made him stand out to her like Van always did. She wanted to yell out his name to get his attention, but would be embarrassed if it wasn't him. She finally managed to move her way into his line of sight, and by some uncanny way of people being able to make eye contact without any notion of communication, his dark wine eyes locked on her form.

Fanel's eyes widened into large white and red pools as he stopped his motioning and yelling. Was he dreaming? That girl looked so familiar. He seemed to be losing his balance…

"Hito-"

Hitomi wasn't sure it was him. If it was, he'd changed SO much. His eyes, though, pierced through lead and shattered her thoughts in an instant.

Dark summer nights, beaches, the soaring roar of waves and birds around her. Endless lullabies of haunting native songs whistled in her memory ears, like Arabian nights of some exotic place, the exotic blood of Van's mother reaping all sorts of strange quirks and ethnicity in Van that Folken hadn't quite inherited. But Van was wild, with dark, tanned skin, wild black hair like the night, and the blue tattoos on his forehead and arms, from spending the fall season in the At-Kai village with his mother's family. In his eyes you could see the red of his heritage that all of Varie's children had.

This man stood stiff and slightly unsure of himself, his hair carefully combed back with pomade. Thin reading glasses perched a stark, long nose that characterized an angular, interesting face that reminded Hitomi of a face she used to spend hours sketching. His skin was just paler and less full of life in that brown suit.

There was just no way. But she couldn't stop staring at him. The hairs on the back of her neck started to stiffen and stand.

"Hitomi! What are doing standing there?" Allen's strong arms turned her without hesitation away from the teacher's laser eye contact. Hitomi didn't answer, just let him, this once, crush her against him as he moved them both out the fire exit.

"That couldn't be him. There's just no way…"

Van stumbled inside of his classroom while the fire drill was still going. Like a drunken man, he wildly pulled through his files, his hair coming un-slicked and becoming more wild with every crazy rummage. With a cry of relief and something of a mix of hope, he had found the large red attendance folder. He hadn't taken roll yesterday-he had forgotten, the vice principal had been upset. He ran his finger down the list of names in all of his periods of the day.

"Perhaps she's not in my classes…or maybe that…" He sighed, "Or maybe, that wasn't her." Van slumped into his black chair dejectedly, covering his face with his hands. "I'm going crazy. It doesn't matter anymore. She's probably not even at this school anymore. Her parents have probably already shipped her off to that stupid school in western Freid."

"Hitomi…" Van opened his eyes drearily to stare out the window, as if talking to her ghost in his reflection, "Hitomi, I miss you."

It took Hitomi a second to regain her senses and start to think clearly. The man certainly did remind her of Van, but there was no way it could have been him. Van had always said he wanted to go to those ruins and work as a translator in Freid. He was probably over there now, covered and rolling in dirt and had completely forgotten about all of them – he had a tendency to push the bad out of his life if he wished it so. Hitomi wouldn't blame him if he did. Mrs. Fanel was looking rather weak these days.

"He's not coming back," Hitomi reprimanded herself, "It'll never happen, you're a little sister if anything, always were. He wouldn't come back just for your sake, or anyone else's. Not even Varie."

But her heart wished for something quite different.

"Van…where did you go?"

"Hmmm? Hitomi, did you say something?" Allen's fingers tensed around her shoulder.

Hitomi gave a small shudder of surprise-she had forgotten that Allen was the one who pulled her out of the hallway. She looked back at the glass doors into the English hall, even more people were piling out. But where was that teacher? Hitomi squirmed out of Allen's fierce grip with a small smile. "Thanks for helping me along, Allen, but I'm quite all right." She pulled at the sleeves of her blazer absent-mindedly. Allen looked down on her short frame totally confused at her actions. Usually Hitomi was so glowing – but she was as white as a sheet, looking down in the grass as if searching for something that wasn't there.

The bells finally stopped ringing and people starting piling back into the halls. Hitomi ran to get back to her homeroom on time, and was in her seat with a confused Yukari next to her as the vice principal's grating voice came on over the intercom again announcing that their time was "too slow" and the next fire drill must be better.

"Hitomi, where did you go?" Yukari had been looking all over the place for her friend when the bells went off.

Hitomi blushed. How could she tell Yukari about Van? What was there to tell? He wasn't the new English teacher. "I was in the bathroom," she lied.

"That's bullshit!" A friendly face turned around in his desk to face Yukari.

Hitomi glared at Amano, but he grinned happily at Yukari and the blushing blonde to Yukari's left.

"I saw you with Allen! I had to go deliver a message to Ms. Aston and had to pass the English hall – where Allen's homeroom is! They were hugging on each other during the drill!"

"Shut up Amano!" Hitomi seethed through her teeth. She didn't want someone to hear and get the wrong idea about her and Allen, "Allen's just a friend – and he's not the reason I was in the English hall."

"If he's not the reason, then why were you all the way over there when our classroom is a flight below the English hall and there's a bathroom right next door?" Amano wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, making Yukari laugh, agree, and give Hitomi an equally suggestive look.

Hitomi rolled her eyes, blushing, not saying a word. How could she tell them about Van? "Just forget it!" She stammered out.

Yukari and Amano exchanged looks, and Yukari deflated a bit. "You know, I really didn't think you were ever going to let Allen have his way with you. I was kinda hoping you would resist him. I know he's good-looking, Hitomi, but with his type you've got to be a bit more careful."

Hitomi gave out a muffled growl, "Don't worry about me, Yukari, there's nothing to even think about."

Yukari gave Hitomi a slight glare. Why was she so upset? She left homeroom to go see Allen! Hitomi never did things like that, and she was denying attraction so blatantly when the whole school knew how much Allen was after Hitomi's…well…pants!

Yukari decided to ignore it, and the subject was dropped as the announcements came on and the classroom erupted into its usual deafening buzz, the announcer's voice droned out completely. Hitomi made an effort to do her homework, and Yukari and Amano flirted shamelessly. So for one brief moment, all was right with the world. The periods passed as normal time sluggishly moves for one waiting for it to end. Finally, last period came, English, and Hitomi and Yukari made their way to room 167.

"Hitomi, you haven't met the new English teacher, have you?" Yukari asked as the two girls climbed up to the English hall, full from lunch and moving a little slowly.

Answering with a small voice, Hitomi replied with a negative.

Yukari's face twisted with something of a mix of frustration and confusion. "Hitomi, you know you can tell me when anything is wrong, right?"

"Of, course, Yukari," Hitomi said, her voice defensive, "But nothing's wrong. What's with you today? I'm not sick, I'm not unwell. I'm fine! There's nothing wrong, no need to worry!"

She had replied with too many words for Yukari to believe her. "You're never sad." Yukari said, her voice shimmering slightly with some slight soft grievance, something new and unheard, as if had just been dug up, like a ruin revisited long after it has been rotting. "Never sad at all, and today, well, you're just not yourself. What really happened the morning? That thing with Allen and how quiet you've been all day, just staring off into the day. What are you thinking about?"

Hitomi's eyes moved away from Yukari's intense, worried ones, trying to find some hint of relief from Hitomi's oppressed mood. Hitomi's green irises seemed to fade into an

Easter pastel as she looked towards the light outside the exit doors, focusing out and blurring her vision over as she was slightly lost in the moments and past that had flashed by and played out in her mind all day. Her hand was taken up, and she saw him before her, a little girl and a little boy, the best of friends, like an older brother but not quite so far removed from that part of a chaste heart. Their tan arms the same color that last summer, a summer in the sun. He would take her hand always, and give it a squeeze, just like that.

But Hitomi found when she looked down that it was Yukari's earnest hand clenching hers, her face searching Hitomi's for some explanation.

Hitomi felt that moment from before and felt like she would certainly lose herself if she didn't collect some semblance or ordinary life. Hadn't that been so long ago?

"Forget it!" Hitomi said harshly, "I want you to forget, as I am trying to do! Can't you see that, Yukari! Everyone has their dirty laundry, and I'm not going to let it hang on someone else's lines!" Her whispered ferocity faded like a sound as she turned and walked into the classroom with deliberation.

Yukari bowed her head, looking at the ground, silent. She shuffled into the classroom and into her seat, separated by a row from Hitomi. The blonde had already stoically prepared herself for class, getting out her notebook and pen. Yukari simply wished she could inherit such stolidity, but her emotions ran too thick, and she vowed to remain silent of the subject until her friend decided to come to her instead.

The black haired teacher from before was standing at the front of the class, his tie loosened as he lounged in front of the computer waiting for things to settle down. He took roll with a strong voice, and Hitomi could tell he was much younger and very different than their previous English teacher. While Hitomi was wrapped up in her thoughts, the teacher's voice prompted the students, "Is there anyone I didn't call out?"

Hitomi had her nose in her notebook, trying to copy notes from a class she missed the day before, when Allen shoved her elbow, "Hey, Hitomi, did he call out your name?"

Hitomi looked at him questioningly, "No, I guess he didn't," she raised her hand, but the teacher didn't seem to notice her, looking down.

"Sir! Sensei! You didn't call my name." Hitomi said, her hand poised above her, slouched.

He looked up from his roll sheet, under his dark hair. Hitomi felt the small twinge of when they had locked eye contact from before. He really was very young, and only looked a few years older than she. His eyebrows furrowed together as if what she had just told him was a big problem. He seemed to almost be calming himself down, though, and said, "Really? Well, I don't recall you being in this class last time."

"That's because I was on a field trip with the biology class."

"Hmm, okay, there have been some mistakes when the office was transferring roll sheets into my name. Come up here one second."

Hitomi walked to the front of the room, the lolling buzz of classroom chatter detracting from any attention on her and the teacher.

"Well," He held his hand out and Hitomi clasped it, shaking his hand.

Ba-bump Ba-bump

Hitomi stared down at his hand and their grip on hers, looking up at the fire-eyes.

Ba-bump Ba-bump

Was she dreaming? Was the deja-vu?

He seemed to falter a bit, and held her hand with less of a business shake, releasing tension as if he'd held it and her hand before, familiar of the folds and the crease in the skin. Ba-bump

"Your name, then?" He breathed out, gripping in toward her.

Ba-bump Ba-bump

"Hitomi."

Ba-

"Hitomi Kanzaki."

Ba - bump

It became a deeper, louder thump in his chest.

"No way…"

Hitomi curled her fingers around his hand tighter, "Then you, you really are-"

Ba-bump Ba-bump

"Yes!" A huge, disbelieving grin spread across his face, and he stood up over his desk to lean toward her, his handsome face glowing as if his life and just in that moment turned for the better, "It's me, Van, Van Fanel."

Hitomi reached out her other hand to his hair, strange to her, and she stretched her fingers to trace his face, "No way..."

Ba-bump Ba-bump

Ba-bump Ba-bump

Ba-bump Ba-bump

"Umm…Mr. Fanel?" a high voice from the doorway pierced the moment. Hitomi released her hands from him like fire, her face turning tomato as she clenched her rapid-fire heart.

"Hitomi! What are you doing?" Allen seethed from the back. The whole class had stopped to watch the strange exchange. Yukari and Allen were standing, Yukari leaning on her desk in earnest disbelief.

"Mr. Fanel," Aston looked at him queirily as the man backed away form his student and turned his wide-eyed attention to the woman at his door, hand to his chest as if he had heartburn, "Dr. Dornkirk needs to talk to you about the English fieldtrip you were planning right now, since he's not going to be in after school and it's Friday. Is it okay to go see him now? I can watch your class."

Van looked back at Hitomi's wide, beautiful green eyes, and she nodded, looking a little stricken and bewildered. He tore a sheet of paper from his notebook on the desk, wrote something on it, and shoved it into her shaking hands. His excited smile breathed a smile of joy and relief into her mouth.

"Yes, um," Van stuttered with his answer, trying to find some authority in his voice, "have them work on their essays from last time and I'll expect them tomorrow." Van grabbed his suit jacket and walked out of the door, scared to look back at Hitomi. He briskly moved down the halls, disbelieve, sadness, and extreme joy flooding through him at every turn.

He came to the domed archway that connected the English hall with the main building, and leaned on the glass with a tired weight. He looked out at the town below him, and smiled. He walked with conviction to Dr. Dornkirk's office.

Hitomi sat in her seat quietly, all eyes following her, disbelief in some, jealousy in others, but just mainly with looks of confusion. Ms. Aston quirked an eyebrow at the young girl for a brief moment, but soon her loud, commanding ways drifted the class back into a more academic direction.

Hitomi wanted to go after Van, meet him in the hall, give him a huge, long-awaited hug, and talk to him about all that had happened. Going to the bathroom was always a good excuse, she thought. Her hand shot up in excitement.

"Yes, Miss Kanzaki?" Aston asked from the front.

But what would everyone think, after seeing all of that? What would Yukari say? Hitomi looked at her red-headed friend, who was giving her a questioning and untrustworthy look.

Her hand curled and slunk down to her desk, "Nevermind," she said softly. And Aston returned to her book.

The piece of paper Van had given her was still crumpled in her hand. She opened it to read its quickly scribbled words:

"I'll come by tomorrow after breakfast. Tell your family- I want to see everyone."

Hitomi smoothed it out, then folded it neatly and placed it inside her notebook. She smiled softly, her usual softness returning to her angles and frame. She leaned her head over the desk to sleep and imagine.

Yukari turned away, furrowing her forehead. She looked back at the now slumbering Hitomi, and it made sense. But her hurt feelings still remained close, and her red hair draped over her tearing eyes as she tried to do her homework.

Umm….so that's suspense for you! Sorry, kids, I thought I'd update while I had the time. Hope you liked it. E-mail me or do the review thing.

Thanks

Cev