Edit: Line breaks arent showing up at some ponts for some weird reason =(
"Fine Line"
"First impressions and actually being are two different things."
Chapter 36: Real Contact
I drummed my fingers against my desk, eyes staring blankly out at the empty space that was once my crowded workspace.
The pens, pencils, papers, erasers, brushes…all that once littered my desk now littered the floor.
I had thrown them all down, moving them away from my personal space; they made me felt as if I was hemmed in within a frame, a canvas, which I could not get out of.
These were the tools and things that I worked with for most of my life- the things I called my friends and companion. And now I had quickly threw them aside in my moment of confusion, blaming them for my social awkwardness.
Guilt flashed through me momentarily, and I bent down to pick up a 4B pencil that I often use to sketch people; and most recently, a pair of eyes. Gently, I placed it back onto my desk top, and then proceeded to pick up the rest of my…companions.
The last of them, an eraser which had long been blackened by lead, was dropped onto the wooden desk with a soft thud. I retracted my hand from where it hung in the air, and ran them over my lips.
My eyes closed in remembrance, and then...
"Just what are we and what am I to him…?"
My whisper was not answered by any of my companions.
I shifted nervously when Marui did not say anything for a time. For a long, long time.
Or maybe it had just been a short time, but it had felt like ages since he just stood there and stared at me with those brilliant eyes of his.
I looked down at my twiddling fingers, unable to keep the eye contact up any longer and gulped several times. One would think I did not have enough water to drink when in fact I drank more than I should this night.
"Oh."
Oh? Was that all he had to say? I wanted to look up and glare at him, but the shyness and feeling of awkwardness that I was so familiar with had returned to me (bringing with them nostalgia, almost) and I instead kept my head and eyes down again.
"That's great!"
What?
"I thought you always hated me or something."
Is he mocking me?
This is the first time I had ever felt something like this towards someone. This is the first time I had ever confessed, usually preferring to keep my emotions pent up and to myself to avoid any horrible embarrassments or pain. And over the course of time, I started believing that I was nothing but a social disaster.
Marui changed that.
He changed it somehow, without me even realizing it.
He made me want to go out and have…fun. Like normal people my age. He did make me go out and have fun and did things that I would usually never do. Like dance.
I will never forget that night that I danced with him. I never danced to such a song before, and Marui is the first person whom I ever danced with to such a sped up song; I wouldn't even know I could make my body move like that if it wasn't for him!
The baby dances with my dad do not count.
My gaze shifted up, dull brown eyes meeting with his bright lavender eyes.
I tried to find something within those shining depths that would give me a hint of something….anything! That would tell me what it was he was thinking…feeling.
But I couldn't find anything. Not anything that I could understand.
I couldn't understand this man in front of me clearly. His words, his actions, his charisma, his persona…they all befuddled me.
A hazy fog of my memory surfaced, reminiscing on the night he said he….figured me out. And then I stupidly fell into this campaign of trying to solve what he meant.
Suddenly, panic filled me, of all times. What if he did not actually mean anything that time? What if he was just being a good host and flirting me up?
Then…I would have looked utterly stupid if that was true! In front of him and the rest, and Yura…especially Yura. Considering my sudden outburst at her after….I remembered that day at the café with her clearly in my head still. It is the clearest memory I have of her and me, against all the others.
Thoughts raced through my head, all of them laced with panic and a sudden unexplainable fear; of having done something stupid and looking stupid and being outright stupid.
My heart started thumping wilder than ever in my chest, and it wasn't because of Marui's sudden closeness. No, I didn't even take note of that until he called my name.
Sweat laced my brow, the product of anxiety and nervousness.
I think…I was starting to lose control of myself and my head.
I seriously am.
And it all started because of this…man! - In front of me.
If I had never met him…if I had never known him…I would probably still be the same old, normal, plain Kumiko that I always was and am familiar with. But because of him, I felt things I never felt before, I did things I never did before and never would have done, I thought of things and said things I never did before-! ….all because of him.
Marui.
Marui Bunta.
How could one host- one annoying, egoistic, loud, prideful brat of a host out of thousands, one man out of millions- in the whole of Japan, have done this to me?
And I don't even know what it is that he did!
It irritated me, to say the least.
And there you have it. A proof of the things he's caused.
Irritation? Hah, I never felt irritated before in my entire life! I'd just let things slide and go with whatever happened, as long as it kept me out of trouble and preferably did not involve me.
A hand on my shoulder snapped me back to the present, and I looked up, only to find those deep lavender eyes staring at me.
They shone with something, something that I still couldn't decipher. After all this time, when he has already started reading me like a book, I still couldn't understand a single thing about this man.
I haven't figured anything out about him.
I only lost sight of that fine line that was my persona, my attitude, my life.
Aya chewed nervously on her fingers, and only stopped when Niou reached out a hand and pulled her hands away from her mouth.
"Stop worrying, Yunami-hime." He said in that smooth voice of his, but it did not do anything to ebb away her worry.
"But Kumiko's out there, on her own!" She flailed her arms around, nearly knocking over a cocktail glass off the table. "She's….she's….well, you know how she is with guys in general!"
Aya was worried about Kumiko. The girl had been with her for as long as she could remember, and she knew how giddy and nervous Kumiko got around guys. And although she saw some improvements since they took her to Club Prism for her 18th birthday, she was still worried about her; since it is Marui she is alone with currently.
Its not that she think that Marui will pull something (Asuka will personally harm him if he did anything anyways). She knows Marui, albeit not too well; but enough to know that he can be trusted. And Kumiko had been alone with Marui before anyways- too many times to count.
Its just that…this time it's different.
She hadn't been blind, no, although she acted like it. She hadn't been blind to Kumiko's small changes in attitude and reactions towards Marui. She had been with Kumiko for the longest time, far longer than Asuka, Yura and Rinko put together. And she knew all her antics like the back of her hand, and had attainted the ability to read her like a book- not that she was hard to figure out in the first place. If anything, she was like an elementary kid's picture book.
She wasn't sure if Asuka and the others noticed before the cat was let out of the bag, but she knew Kumiko had developed some sort of affection for Marui. If one did not know her as well as she did, they would not have been able to see the little differences between her reactions to Marui and to other guys. She still turned red around Marui, like she did with all other men in general. She still stuttered and looked anywhere but their eyes. But Aya saw, and knew: Kumiko liked Marui.
She didn't know the depths of her feelings for Marui, whether it reached a higher level than just mere like and affection- but like Marui she did.
And it worried Aya to leave her best friend up there with the first guy that ever did this to her.
How would she act? What will she say? How will she feel? How will she cope? All these questions and many others ran through Aya's mind.
She had wanted to sneak up there and watch, support Kumiko (…spiritually until she inadvertently breaks in to make her support physical) but Niou had said no, and blocked her path up. Asuka bristled at the silver haired man for awhile, but then calmed down enough. Rinko was undecided about what to do, and Aya felt that Rinko didn't really care enough anyways since she was soon back to flirting with other hosts.
Aya hadn't understood why Niou stood in her way, and how the hell he even knew anyways. And Asuka…she just shrugged when asked. Said something about letting the little turtle grow up for awhile.
Aya pinched her arms, to keep herself occupied as she paced around in the hallway that led to the elevator.
She'll pester the answer out of Niou later on how he knew about Kumiko's feelings, and his unconventional help in getting the two alone to give Kumiko a chance.
For now, she wanted to worry about her friend.
My breaths came out in shaky puffs, not because of his sudden closeness, but because the night air blowing against my skin was really starting to affect me. It was freezing up here.
Marui seemed to notice.
"Maybe we should head back down…you're shivering." As he said this, he held one of my hand in his, gently running his thumb over my cold fingers, a frown marring his face.
Was he…ignoring my confession?
Turmoil bubbled at the pits of my stomach, hope and despair warring against each other. He…hadn't said anything against my liking him and has only been tender so far, which eased my fear. But then he also seems to be deliberately ignoring it.
"Marui, why aren't you-"He silenced my question, placing a finger against my lips and I stopped talking.
I stared up at him as he looked down at me, and I could faintly smell his breath laced with the scent of green apple and pervaded also with that of red wine.
A child -bubblegum- and adult -wine- from beginning to end.
From when I first met him, I think I grew to love the two combinations. Nostalgia rose in me when I recalled my fervent dislike of alcohol in the past, and mixing it with sweets? I found it repulsive. Funny how much one person can change…another. Or perhaps…how much a person can change without realizing it until…
I kept my gaze steady with his and for a moment, I thought sadness wavered in those eyes of his, but then when I blinked to take a better look, it was gone and his usual unreadable gaze was back.
Without warning, I felt his soft lips over mine, and my eyes widened in shock and confusion.
Is Marui….kissing me?
The original me would have fainted right off the bat if a boy even kissed my cheeks. But the me now stood there, astounded, not knowing what to do or what was going on,
It wasn't my first kiss- no, my first kiss was taken by Shiraishi when he saved me from drowning.
And yet, I wondered if a first kiss was supposed to feel like this under normal circumstances? I know my cheeks were burning a deep red right now, and the cold air could not do anything to cool it either, and goosebumps were blossoming all over my skin; both from the cold and a rising anxiousness.
My heart rate tripled in a space of a few milliseconds, but my body was still frozen in shock, mind unable to process the moment to give any orders to my limbs.
Just when I parted my lips shakily to give voice to my confusion and began to take a step back, Marui broke the contact and without even giving me another glance, took my hand in his and led me away and back towards the elevator down to the club room.
Once again, he led me and I followed. And I was only allowed to look at his back which forever seemed turned to me, a book which I can never decode, hiding his true self away from my prying eyes.
Feels like this story is going nowhere for some reason. Argh, I just wanna head on to writing Love Story, Absolute Prince, Spice and restarting Gate To The Hearts (only that will be demolished and rewritten).
Thanks so much for all the reviews guys! And dont forget to review this too XD ps: if it helps with reviewing incentives, I usually read the reviews of the latest chapters and depending on that, my rate of writing changes XD;
Now going onto my personal thanking for reviews again after thanking in general. I just realized I forgot to thank you all personally last chapter x_x ...do you guys actually even read this bit at the end and the replies I give back? x.X
Lolita07- loool one day? x_x I hope you didnt strain your eyes D: but heres an update for you and thank you for reviewing!~
kur-chan- haha thats the point of cliffhangers isnt it? XD thank you though~!
Falceto - Sorry bout the switching POV thing XD; I wanted some sort of flow to the story without that ugly *Marui's POV* thing in most stories I see interrupting lol and sorry bout the long chapters as well x.x but short chapters just really...bugs me for some reason. And the initial chapters...ahahaha...I was still groping around in the dark for a point to this story at that time, and I've only just started developing Kumiko at that time so I was pretty lost as to what kind of person she is xD; If I had the will, chance and wasnt so lazy, Id go back and change the first 8 chapters of this story x.x and sorry bout the cheesy summary too . I told one of my beta readers before that I tend to write some really mushed up cheese stuffs sometimes, and they agreed without hesitation ;_; And as for the age? Eh...they are all 18 and above XD; And they all went to school I suppose haha since I did write that Marui and Jackal attended school together too lol And Atobe recruited all the people into his host club in his Atobe-ish way (coughbribing with moneycough). Jk~ XD but thank you so much for the review! Your review really did lift me out of my slump =D its rare that I get such a long review XD and one that actually feedbacks to me the things they enjoyed and disliked haha XD; not that I dont appreciate all my reviews (I do! I stay up at 2am in the morn sometimes just going through all the reviews I ever got)but I kinda want people to tell me what they like and hate, so that I may improve and change according to their wishes!...so long as its not a flame lol But thank you again! I'll try to get rid of the slump-ish parts of my life soon, so I may jump right back up and update like crazy =D
Rika-chi- I'm so sorry you didnt like the last chapter as much =( that was my fault. I was just so stressed that I didnt feel like writing in detail so I just jump shipped and skipped everything I originally intended to write T_T I shouldnt have let my personal life and feelings get in the way of my writing to be honest. Its really unprofessional ;_; so sorry! I hope this chapter will make it up to you a bit at least T_T
LazyLadington- I thought you stopped reading this story, since I never saw you pestering me anymore XXD ahaha, and I guess it really does drag things out too much sometimes with long chapters =( I should try to find a balance ;_; but everytime I start writing, I just start pouring every single emotion I feel at that time, and what Kumiko and I myself would feel in that position and then the story just extends itself inadverdently OTL Thank you for reviewing yet again though *hug* My summer is here, but I had SATs to do and now SAT II's to study for and also complete my digital art portfolio for university and complete my IB summer assignments =( there's so much work, summer might as well not be here sigh. I've stayed inside my house for the past 3 weeks of summer T_T
demonsadish- I feel like a demon sadist today. Marui's thoughts are not going to be given...for a long,long time ;D
TheMadChatterKina- x.x why do you want to punch Niou and Marui? D:
PhoenixRage92- haha I guess her sudden spontaneousness coincides with my sudden stress levels which led to erratic writing x.x
Kouyan- yes, she did. Finally, right? XD
NiouMasaharu- haha thank you XD and I'm getting by better now =D still a bit stress from the work load but better than when I had exams everywhere I look x.x
Hoshi Hanabi- yea, it was pretty rushed =( I'm so sorry about sigh. Was really stressed and pressure when I wrote that and I let that get the best of me and it effected my writing T_T And Fine Line wont end anytime soon yet =D I mean, we havent even gotten to the wedding! -bricked-
Cynaide- I understand how you feel on the backspace thing x.x it happened to me a lot of times before, so now I have a habit of copying everything I type every so often, or just evade the backspace button xD; and I'm sorry about the typos =/ I've fixed them already and yea, I did speed things up a lot last chapter . I had allowed stress and pressure to override me and it has effected my writing, which is entirely my fault. I should have started writing when my head was more clear. I'll try not to do that next time _; Although I'm still not sure why some of the sentences annoyed you ;_;