It seems like it's been a while since I updates this one. Sorry about that :) but my self-esteem levels have been fluctuating wildly lately. And most of the time I feel like my confidence has gone on holiday...somewhere far, far away. ;_;
Hope it's not too cheesy for you guys. I felt like it was really cheesy romantic in some bits. =.=' Thanks to Tokyo Neko for the theme. Hopefully I didn't ruin it too much...
Otherwise, enjoy! XD
Love Letters
E is for EXPERIMENT
"Oh my."
Jun swivels around in his seat to see Shinku standing in his doorway, one perfect eyebrow arched elegantly as she surveys the room with a coolly scrutinising gaze. Wordlessly, her eyes flicker back to him, lips slightly curled with disapproval.
"What is the meaning of this?"
By 'this', Jun concludes, she is referring to the current state of his room; chaotic. There are half-scrunched up balls of paper strewn everywhere across the floor. The waste-paper bin is overflowing with screwed up pages filled with scribbles of formulas, pens and pencils litter the room, and there are several toppling piles of textbooks scattered over Jun's bed with titles printed in heavy upper case letters, declaring with a solemn pomposity their respective subjects: Chemistry, Biology and Physics.
"What are you doing?" Shinku says again, fixing Jun now with a more pronounced stern glare. He makes a growling, mildly frustrated sound and turns back to his cluttered desk, pencil tapping impatiently against the table.
"I'm studying science."
There is a brief silence that indicates Shinku's dissatisfaction with his answer. The back of his neck prickles as he feels her disapproving stare on him.
"The last time I checked, science does not involve the obliteration of one's sense of hygiene and cleanliness," she says frostily, now coming into the room. He turns again to watch her as she approaches him, gingerly poking balls of paper out of her way with her cane as if they are infested with some sort of deadly contagious disease. As she reaches him, Shinku reaches up and raps the side of his chair sharply.
"Tidy this up, Jun. It is like a mine field in here. How on earth do you expect me to walk around in such filth?"
He groans and considers refusing, but right now even cleaning his room seems like a more attractive alternative than wasting his time struggling with a science textbook that is about as comprehensible to him as the German books Shinku reads. The blonde doll seats herself on a vacant spot on his bed and follows Jun around the room with a watchful gaze as he goes about picking up the books and papers flung across the floor and empties his bin.
After a few minutes, Shinku picks up one of the books lying alongside her and flips casually through it. Before long, she is already engrossed in reading. Jun pauses as he returns from emptying his bin downstairs, wondering at how she manages to find even a high school science textbook interesting enough to actually immerse herself in. He has to hand it to her; although she is a doll, she obviously isn't the least bit lacking in intelligence.
"Quite the scholar, aren't you?" he sighs after observing her for a moment. Shinku looks up, her face deadpan.
"Perhaps it is just you who is the intellectually challenged one."
"Hey! It's bad enough with Suiseiseki calling me an idiot! I'm not stupid; I just…need time to absorb stuff."
Shinku nods, the corner of her lips curving upwards in a faint smirk.
"Of course. You are not stupid. You are incredibly stupid."
"OI! I…" Jun trails off, biting his lip. For a moment, he looks as if he is going to retaliate, but then his shoulders slump and he sighs, looking genuinely depressed.
"I'm never going to be able to catch up enough for school. Geez, why do I even bother…damn chemistry…and physics…I just don't get it…"
Shinku studies him silently for a few moments, no longer teasing. She seems to consider something, before glancing back down at the textbook sitting in her lap.
"What is it that you don't understand?" she asks suddenly, her tone surprisingly gentle. Jun stares at her.
"Huh?"
His heart does a funny little skip as she looks up, a completely unexpected smile breaking out spontaneously across her face, momentarily causing him to forget how to breathe.
"You really are such a troublesome servant to get discouraged so easily. I suppose there is no choice for it, really. It is my responsibility as master to save my servant from his own helplessness. Come and sit," Shinku gestures for Jun to sit beside her.
"Y-You're going to help me?" he asks, not quite able to believe what is happening. She raises an eyebrow.
"Do you have a problem with that? Honestly, Jun, did you expect me to be so unkind as to leave you floundering around like a drowning puppy? No servant of mine should be discouraged so easily. And besides," her voice softens, her blue eyes melting from an icy sapphire into the gentle, mild azure of the sky on a fine day. "I have faith in you."
The temperature of the room suddenly seems to rise by several degrees.
Jun clears his throat nervously as he plonks down beside Shinku, looking everywhere but at her. Her moment of temporary tenderness seems to have evaporated however, as she resumes speaking in her usual brisk tone.
"Now, what is it that you have trouble understanding?"
At first, Jun is hesitant, but after a few hearty and much-appreciated encouragements from Shinku (which he supposes he should relish now since she very rarely shows him anything other than her usual cool, haughty detachment), he finds he is able to open up to her quite easily. She doesn't mock him as ruthlessly as Suiseiseki; she is surprisingly gentler than Souseiseki, less distracted than Nori, more helpful than Hinaichigo and much less awkward than Tomoe.
As well as this, Jun supposes, she is being unexpectedly patient with him – she hasn't scolded or reprimanded him with a strict lecture through the whole chapter they manage to cover in just under an hour. What astonishes him further, though, is just how knowledgeable Shinku is and how easy it is to understand her explanations of concepts that have been previously completely unintelligible to him.
"How do you know so much about this stuff?" Jun asks with wonder as Shinku finishes explaining the periodic table to him. The blonde flashes him a look of superiority.
"Unlike some, I chose to put my years to good use."
Well, Jun considers, she is several hundred years old. Shinku has a wisdom of her own.
Still, even after all the time she's spent living with him, she continues to surprise him like this with a warmth and kindness that belies her usual aloof, coldly proud bearing. He doesn't think of it often, but no matter how self-confident Shinku normally acts, she is unexpectedly compassionate beneath the aristocratic image she has erected around herself.
"Shinku…" Jun trails off, suddenly finding himself growing hot and fidgety.
"What?" she sounds disinterested.
"I…thank you. For explaining this stuff. I was having heaps of trouble…and you…you really helped."
She stares at him, some unfathomable emotion flickering briefly across her eyes. Jun hastily looks down, suddenly finding the floor very interesting indeed, cheeks scarlet with embarrassment.
"I-I mean, when you explain it, it's a lot easier to understand than what the textbook says…and…uh…I feel a lot better with science and stuff…yeah…so thanks…" he falters, scratching the back of his neck and looking incredibly awkward.
"Why didn't you ask Tomoe to help you study?" Shinku asks suddenly, looking down at her page. Her tone is neutral but there is a slight crease between her brows. Jun is slightly taken aback for a moment. Of all the replies he'd expected from her, this was not one of them.
"Uh…well…to be honest, it's kind of awkward with her…I mean, we used to be really good friends and all, but after…" he trails off, unwilling to go into detail. Shinku too, remains silent, and both of them sit there for a moment, not speaking. Jun waits for the doll to respond but she is seemingly lost in her own thoughts, or maybe expecting him to continue.
"Er, well, you're really easy to understand…and…I just…I…" he clears his throat nervously.
"I would have thought," Shinku interrupts him suddenly, her frown deepening slightly, "that you would be more comfortable interacting with other people like you…who are…other humans?" she glances at him sideways.
"Isn't that what you want to do? Go back to school, start afresh, make friends with…with real people –"
"You're a real person, aren't you?" Jun butts in suddenly, and she is startled by the intensity in his eyes. A rush of bright scarlet floods his cheeks and he coughs self-consciously. "Um…what I wanted to say was…I…I really enjoy it when you're explaining things to me…I like spending time with you…so…" he looks away over at the corner of the room, perhaps too embarrassed to continue.
What he has said, though, is enough for her to understand what he has left unsaid.
She is a doll
He is a human.
He knows it would have been easier if he just left what was between them alone. It would have been easier to pretend it didn't exist, to ignore it. It would be easier for him to just walk away.
He knows it would be easier to just forget.
But Jun also knows that doing so will be the single regret he will never be able to forgive himself for.
Thus, he has made his decision, and he will stand by it without hesitation or doubt.
"Do you know the scientific method?" Shinku asks suddenly, shaking Jun out of his awkwardness.
"Um…"
"You must first ask the question that you wish to find the answer to. For example," She hesitates, a mysterious shadow flickering across her face, and continues in a voice so quiet Jun almost doesn't hear it at all. "Is it possible for a human to fall in love with…say, a doll?"
He stares at her, but she is looking down at the textbook in her lap with a softly ponderous expression, cheeks stained with a faint rosy blush.
"After that, you conduct background research, and from that, formulate a hypothesis; that is, a prediction of what you think the outcome of your results will be." She pushes the science book aside off her lap and turns to Jun. "Then, you must conduct tests to find conclusive evidence to prove your hypothesis."
Shinku leans forward, but Jun doesn't move back.
And before he even has the time to catch his breath, she is already kissing him.
There have been times when she has lost faith before, but she thinks that, like she has been telling him before, she must believe in it; this time, for her own sake. She'll believe in love, because it is one of those things that you must experience to be able to understand.
"I choose you, Shinku."
Is what he wanted to tell her.
"And I always will."
It is as simple as that.
"Above everything and anything else."
You have to fall in love to know what it is.
Shinku almost wants to laugh as she thinks no amount of 'background research' would be able to tell her that.
My hypothesis...might just be proven correct.
She draws back finally, her eyes the colour of the ocean on a summer's day; deep sapphire blue, sparkling with a light that seems to originate from within, bright and profound all at once, filled with a depth that is as intense as any human's. Her lips are curved gently upwards, the corners of her eyes softened where her smile has touched them.
Her smile, which reaches him like sunlight stroking his face, that warmth which seems to permeate the very pores of his skin.
"What…what was that?" he whispers almost reverently, finally finding his voice. She peers back at him with a hooded gaze, and she is so close he can see the details of her long lashes against her pale cheek.
The spell of the moment passes and Shinku slides off his bed, murmuring so softly Jun thinks he must be the only one in the world who can hear her.
"That," she says softly, "was the experiment."
"And…was it a success?"
She pauses, and he watches, heart skipping a beat, as her smile widens.
"Yes."
Ok...so I think I maybe I did the theme weirdly. But hey, any excuse to make them kiss, right? ;_;
And yeah, I know the ending was random too! And probably made people go wtf? *sobs*
Ah well, at least I made them kiss. I like doing that. Please review! :D
