Author's Note: Omgzz, sorry how long this took to get up guys ^^;;; And sadly there's not even any couplings in it... Is mostly Arashi+Daisuke and Kusanagi+Subaru. Yeah, I was kind of enjoying writing odd pairings. XD BUT! It's chapter 12! \ ^_^ / (I love 12, it's my favorite number!) So w00t!
Also, it's time for a long overdue shout-out to both laustic and sayu-chan93 who have been so diligently reading and reviewing! Thank you both of you so much! *heart*
Now without any further ado, I present Chapter 12: In Which Arashi and Daisuke make a pact.
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Arashi folded her arms neatly on the windowsill, resting her chin on them morosely. At a knock on the door, she quickly straightened up and adjusted the shawl around her shoulders. Daisuke hesitantly pushed the door ajar.
"It's okay, come in." she called hoarsely to him.
"I have your assignments." He walked in with an armful of textbooks and folders.
"Thank you Daisuke." She took them from him gratefully, expecting him to simply leave.
Instead he stood awkwardly, shifting from one foot to the other, trying to find something to do with his arms. After crossing them, clutching one with his other hand and the most awkward of all, putting his hands behind his head in an odd stretching motion, he finally settled on clasping his hands behind his back like an obedient schoolboy.
Arashi watched all of this unfold with one eyebrow slightly quirked.
"Do you really hate Sorata-san so much?"
Arashi tilted her head slightly. "Hate him?"
Daisuke nodded. "You usually just kind of ignore him but you were really adamant about him not coming while you were ill."
She shrugged nonchalantly. "I was ill."
"And you didn't want to deal with him?"
She plucked at a string on the end of her shawl. "Well it's not really that…"
"Then why?" Daisuke sank onto the cushion at the other end of the window sill and she frowned at the sudden boldness. When did he get so comfortable? And why was it so warm in here?
"Because…"
Daisuke leaned back against the wall, drawing one foot up in front of him and resting his forearm on his knee.
Arashi turned to look out the window. "I just… didn't really want him to see me looking like such a mess."
"Huh? But you were sick- I mean no one looks like a supermodel when they have a cold."
"I know that." She snapped, pulling the loose thread away, dismayed to see it unraveling the whole hem of the shawl as she did so.
"Uhoh." He commented on the garment.
She ignored him and pulled the shawl off, tossing it aside for the time being.
"Probably a good choice. It's getting too warm to keep yourself all wrapped up like that anyway, don't you think?"
She glared at him. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"
He blinked in confusion. "That it's spring and the weather's been heating up so you don't really need a shawl anyway?"
Arashi leaned her head against the window pane, hoping the cool glass would help ease the blush she could feel spreading across her face.
"So why does it matter if Sorata sees you a little less put-together than you are at school?"
Yes, why does it matter? She wondered.
She shrugged as nonchalantly as she could. "I dunno, I just don't like it."
"You didn't strike me as the shallow type."
"What?" She spun her head away from the glass to stare at him in disbelief.
Daisuke jumped and immediately tried to recover the situation. "I meant… I just… it's not that I think you're shallow, I just meant that… that is… I didn't think you were the type to worry about appearances, you know?" He nervously shifted, withdrawing his limbs closer to himself and leaning back in case she tried to strike him. "Not that, you know, there's anything wrong with caring about appearances!"
Arashi rolled her eyes and picked up a textbook, flipping through it angrily, just to give herself something to do with her hands. "I don't care about appearances. There are a lot more important things in life."
Daisuke watched her nearly rip a page in the book as she jerked the pages over with the loud snap of paper disapprovingly objecting to such violent treatment. He winced and opened his mouth to proceed then closed it again.
"It's just… he does."
Daisuke looked taken aback. "What do you mean? That Sorata cares about appearances?"
Arashi bent her head over the book, letting her hair fall forward, hoping it would cover up the embarrassment she feared was shining through. "Yeah."
Daisuke leaned forward again, this time with a more curious expression and Arashi suddenly remembered a kitten Hinoto had brought home to the temple once years before. "Where did you get that idea?"
"He was always saying how pretty I was when we first met… That's all he really cared about." She cursed herself for letting her voice drift lower, knowing how vulnerable that must have made her sound about now. Certainly she felt incredibly vulnerable but she didn't need Daisuke to know that. What if he went and told Sorata?
Daisuke peered at her through the curtain of hair that had fallen over her face and she wished he would look somewhere else, anywhere else right now. "He did think you were really pretty at first. Still thinks you're really pretty." He shifted uncomfortably. "I mean, you are." He blushed slightly before moving on. "But if that bothers you, if you think it's shallow, then I still don't understand…"
"Don't understand what?" She glanced up.
"Why would you not want him to see you a mess?" He looked genuinely befuddled.
"Well he wouldn't think I was pretty anymore would he now?" she snapped.
Daisuke blinked. "So?"
Arashi let go of the page she was about to turn and stared blankly at it. "So what?"
"So what if he doesn't think you're pretty anymore… you said you don't care about appearances…"
Arashi suddenly found herself imagining pushing Daisuke out of the room and slamming the door behind him. It was so much easier to hide behind a nice, solid, closed door. "I don't." she replied softly instead.
"Then why does it matter?" Daisuke rested his hands on the cushion in front of her and leaned forward more, closer to her face and she backed away against the wall as far as she could.
"Because…" she looked away, staring at the floor beside her, suddenly fascinated by the carpet. "Because if all he likes is my appearance… and I don't have that anymore… what do I have?" She wrapped her arms around herself, wishing for the shawl back. She felt her throat closing up and a threatening sting behind her eyes.
Out of the corner of her she could see confusion then something like understanding cross Daisuke's face and he moved back, giving her some more space. He thought for a moment and for the first time since he had entered the room, she wished he would say something.
"Arashi-san?"
"Now what?"
"Do you like Sorata?"
She shrugged. "Like I said, I don't hate him."
"But do you like him?"
She pressed her arms more tightly to her chest. "Did he send you here to ask all this?"
Daisuke shook his head. "I'm just curious… maybe I'm just being nosy. I'm sorry if I'm prying…"
"Then why are you doing so?"
"I guess because I'm worried about both of you."
"Why?"
He tilted his head and looked up at the ceiling as if he thought the answer was secretly written up there. She glanced up too, wondering herself what he was looking at.
"Because I consider both of you friends."
Arashi gave a small jump and stopped staring at the ceiling, turning her gaze to him. "Both of us?"
"Yeah. I mean… I know you and I don't talk a lot, but you seem really nice… I mean you told me about the lilies thing. Which yeah, ended up getting messed up…"
"Because of Sorata." Arashi pointed out bluntly.
"Well… yes. But it's not like he did it on purpose! And he did take me out for dinner to make up for it- which was really nice of him."
Arashi sighed and shook her head, feeling some of the tension that had built up starting to melt away now that the conversation had turned away from her.
"But anyway- I think if you like him you should tell him that, don't you think?"
And there was that tension again.
"What, you mean like you've told Hinoto?" Arashi retorted.
Daisuke turned roughly the color of a cardinal and stammered a rough response. "Th-that's not the same!"
"What? It's exactly the same!"
"You're just trying to change the subject!"
She gaped at him.
"Ha! I'm right aren't I!" Daisuke crossed his arms triumphantly.
She snapped her jaw shut and set her expression into a cold glare. He tried to maintain his triumphant look but as the moments stretched on under her cold gaze he quickly bent and lost his courage. He dropped his arms from his chest and stared at his hands in his lap, slightly humbled. Then he looked up again with a mischievously look in his eye that Arashi immediately knew she didn't like.
"Hey. I have an idea."
"No."
"What? Yes I do…"
"No, I mean no, I won't agree to your idea."
He looked crushed. "But you haven't even heard it yet!"
"I don't care. Whatever it is the answer is no."
His shoulders slumped for a second then he looked up more determined. "Fine then. My idea is that we NOT agree tell Hinoto and Sorata by the end of the Arts Festival next week."
"Not doing it Daisuke."
He studied her for a moment. "Why, are you too scared to tell him?"
She flushed. "That's not-" She froze then glared at him. "That's not going to work either."
He sighed.
"Did you actually expect me to fall for that?" she added, indignantly.
"No, but I figured it was worth a try." He stared out the window dejectedly.
"Why did you want to do that anyway?"
"Well… I sort of thought maybe it would force me to finally confess to Hinoto to be honest. You know, if I'd made a pact or something with somebody else. It'd be harder to back out of, I guess."
Arashi turned to stare out the window with him, watching two small children ride by on their bicycles, racing. When they reached their chalk finish line they hopped off the bicycles laughing, neither one seeming to care who the winner was. They lay on the ground, exhausted for a moment, still giggling and joking until at last they both got to their feet again and ran to the other end of the street to draw another chalk line and back to mount their bikes and race once more. The way they were laughing you would think it was just the greatest thing in the world.
"Okay."
"Huh?" Daisuke stirred, distracted by the kids.
"Okay." She blushed. "We'll try your idea."
Daisuke took a moment to process this then his eyes lit up.
"Really?"
"Yeah sure."
"Okay! Um… shall we say we have until midnight the day of the Arts Festival to confess? I should be at the temple the next day so we can both tell each other how it went?"
Arashi nodded.
"We should promise somehow…"
Silence fell over them and they could hear the kids distantly laughing outside.
"Well… I guess we could pinky promise." He suggested awkwardly.
"What are we, five?" Arashi raised an eyebrow.
"Well would you rather spit in our hands and shake on it?"
She raised her pinky.
.
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Kusanagi carefully lay the dog on the table, stroking its ears reassuringly while Subaru checked its wounds. "I can't believe they just hit it and drove off like that…" he muttered.
"I think he'll be okay though." Subaru replied. "He needs a few stitches and I think that paw might be fractured but it doesn't look like there was any major internal damage. Are you just going to take him into your shelter?"
Kusanagi nodded and sat back, moving out of the way.
After a few moments of silence while he worked, Subaru glanced up. "What else is wrong?"
"Huh?"
"It seems like something else is bothering you, every time you have dropped by over the past couple of days you've seemed a little down. Do you want to talk about it?"
If it had been anyone else, he would have kept it to himself, but something he had realized about Subaru over the past year or so that he had known him was that the young vet was incredibly non-judgmental. "There's this girl that started coming in for dog-training a while back and has wound up sticking around and helping me with the shelter… We went on a little camping trip a couple of weekends ago and at the end of it she said she really likes me."
Subaru nodded to show he was still paying attention without interrupting. Although he suddenly thought back to when he lost his eye and Yuzuriha had visited him in the hospital. Hadn't she let it slip that she wanted to be friends with someone named Kusanagi…?
"The thing is, she's only fifteen so I told her she should try to find someone her own age. She understood, I thought, and hasn't been back by in a while except for training. But since she's been gone… well, to be honest, I really miss her."
"Have you told her that you miss having her help out?"
"Well… no."
Subaru glanced up at him curiously. "Why not?"
"Well I don't want her to get the wrong idea…"
Subaru's brow furrowed in confusion. "How would she get the wrong idea?"
"I don't want her to think I'm after her or anything."
"But you want to spend time with her?"
"Right."
Subaru shook his head. "I don't understand."
"Huh?"
"I don't understand why you told her to date people her own age." The dog flinched and whined as Subaru finished off its stitches. He stroked it reassuringly, murmuring soothing words to it.
"Well wouldn't it be better for her to find someone her own age to spend time with?"
Subaru looked up at him with a frank expression. "I don't know what would be best for her. That's something that only she can decide, really."
Kusanagi felt slightly chastised. He turned away, embarrassed, letting his shoulders drop somewhat.
"But I do know what it's like to be in a similar position."
Kusanagi perked up again, paying rapt attention. "You mean you have liked someone a lot younger than yourself?"
Subaru shook his head patiently. "No, I meant I've been in a similar position to her."
Kusanagi felt his eyes widen then remind himself not to stare.
Subaru fidgeted slightly. "I fell in love with somebody almost ten years older than me."
He waited, not wanting to interrupt and curious to hear where this was going.
"We met when I was sixteen."
Kusanagi clamped his teeth together to keep from letting his jaw drop and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Yeah?"
Subaru ignored the stance and continued checking over the dog. "My family… didn't exactly like it."
"Well that is a pretty big age difference, especially when you're that young." Kusanagi reasoned.
Subaru inexplicably blushed suddenly. "That's not entirely why actually…"
Kusanagi started to question it but Subaru quickly continued. "The thing is, my grandmother, she was the one who raised my twin sister and I, told me to stop spending time with that person."
"Did you?"
"I did at first."
Kusanagi was not terribly surprised by this. Subaru seemed like such an obedient, dutiful son. "At first?"
Subaru stared sadly at the dog, pausing for a moment. "It made me really unhappy, now that I look back on it. I missed them a lot."
"And that made you decide to see them again anyway?"
Subaru shook his head again, a smile creeping over his lips. "No, it was my sister. She's incredibly intuitive and knew that it was bothering me. And then one day, she told me something I've never forgotten."
"What's that?" Kusanagi was practically on the edge of his seat by this point.
"She said that 'no one has the right to judge what makes another person happy'."
Kusanagi contemplated this. "So what happened?"
Subaru carefully moved the dog to one of the cages in the back, explaining briefly that he should keep it under observation for a couple of days before moving it to the shelter before finishing his tale. "I went to see them again that day."
"And?"
"And now we're still together." Subaru smiled shyly to himself as he gathered up the equipment to be sterilized.
Kusanagi grinned then a thought occurred to him. "What about your family?"
He wished Subaru's back wasn't turned to him when he asked that question. Based on the way the young man froze he wished he could have seen the look on his face.
"My family and I haven't spoken in some time, except for my sister."
Kusanagi frowned, staring at the floor, wondering if he should comfort the vet or say something or…
"But..."
He looked up again as Subaru turned around.
"Given the choice, I wouldn't do a thing different."
"Why not?" Kusanagi wondered at how he could accept being ostracized so readily.
Subaru smiled warmly. "Because I'm happy with that person."
"Even though you don't talk to your family anymore?"
"Yes."
"Can one person really make up for that?" Kusanagi was incredulous.
"I don't think just any person can."
"Who then?"
"The person that one cares about. The one that is special to them."
Kusanagi wanted to just brush it off as corny or overly romantic thinking but he found it harder to do so when the image of Yuzuriha's smiling face suddenly invaded his thoughts. "But still, she's so young…"
"She is young. But I don't think that love has much to do with age. Besides, for all her childish exterior, Yuzuriha is actually pretty mature…"
Kusanagi agreed, letting his thoughts cruise along before braking suddenly. "Wait. I never told you her name."
Subaru paled and adopted the same look a deer caught by a car on the road in the middle of the night might wear. "Oh… I just guessed it was the girl who came in a while back…"
Kusanagi raised an eyebrow and suddenly wondered if Yuzuriha had come to him too. Either way, he decided to let it go and left the clinic, returning to his own studio to check when the next training class was.
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A/N: I wasn't actually originally expecting Arashi and Daisuke to get along so well. XD They decided to do that as I was writing... And hey, they did know one another somehow in X as I recall... and while Subaru and Kusanagi never met as far as I know, I kind of figured what with Subaru's love of animals in Tokyo Babylon that has carried over to this world, they would get along well enough. Besides, who doesn't love Subaru?
Oh and the answer btw to what book Tooru was reading was Through the Looking Glass. XD I know, I keep making Alice in Wonderland references; sorry I recently reread it and forgot how much I loved those books...