Author's note: Though he's not exactly hers… Oh, and Merry early Christmas! It's gotten easier writing chapters when I'm not worried about the word count or the amount of pages. Sorry for some confusing moments you might encounter. Happy reading!
You are the best thing that's ever been mine. –Mine, Taylor Swift
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Chapter Sixteen
I guess I was pretty used to chillaxing all the time in Hakutai city because when I arrived back home, all motivation to do my best in school had flown out of my head.
It was one chilly November afternoon and a light snow had started falling outside.
I was supposed to be studying out where the television was, but the mood had been so depressing in the apartment that I'd picked up an even more depressing manga. It'd been one that Kasumi had told me to try out, though I'd never gotten around to reading it; and now, I was near the middle and I was silently crying my eyes out.
I'd been trying to keep it real quiet as Shinji was only in his room, and the way he reacted to the slightest noises made it seem like he though a slight sight was hard metal music; but I'd failed miserably. By the time I was a little past the middle I was bawling.
Oh god, how embarrassing.
I suppose after that haunted chateau episode I'd turned into a total sissy.
Shinji opened the door slightly; to find out why I was crying I suppose, and when he saw what I was reading, he let out a loud, irritated sigh.
I could hear his footsteps and I hurriedly tried to compose myself as he came nearer and nearer. He bent down to pluck the manga from my hand and asked me in a disbelieving tone, "Seriously? You have a test in calculus in two days and you're reading a comic book?"
I lost all my composure as he finished and explained to him, "You don't get it! She just found out that she has this incurable disease and she's pregnant with that guy's child and he has major trust issues!"
"Dear god, these are worse than those weird Asian house wife dramas." He muttered.
"I promise I'll study after I find out what happens." I told him as I reached over to grab the manga back from him.
He easily avoided my hands and said in a calm, even voice, "You told me that you wanted me to teach you, so I'm teaching you." He walked towards his room, waving the manga in his hand, "This is called self-discipline." And he closed the door behind him.
I tried to concentrate one how angry I was at him, but my runny nose got in the way so I just huffed and walked over to the tissues on the kitchen counter.
When I'd nearly used up all the tissues in the box trying to get the snot to stop clogging my nose, I decided a nice bucket of ice cream would lift my mood. I mean, geez, they worked better than anti-depressants; and I was right.
One tub of chocolate later, I was ready to start studying again. The brain freeze had brought me back to reality and I could hear the cogs in my brain start grinding together. It was well into the night before I realized that I was too tired to keep going and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
After a nice, long warm shower, I was brushing my teeth, trying to dry my hair with a single hand when I realized that I'd left all my notes outside. I walked out while brushing my teeth and let out a little sound when I saw Shinji on lying on the couch, my notes in his hand.
I sneaked over to where he was and looked around the papers to see that his eyes were closed. I let out a breath that I hadn't realized I was holding and smiled a little. I finished brushing in a rush and for a while, I was running around, trying to remember where the extra blankets were.
I finally found a quilt in a dusty little closet that I'd hadn't noticed was there, gently slid the papers from his grip and spread it on top of him. He was still in his jeans, but I had no mind to change him, though I was rather embarrassed that the thought would pass my mind.
A grunt took me out of my thoughts and I looked at Shinji as he struggled to get comfortable on the tiny couch.
His violet hair fanned his face and even in sleep, his eyebrows were scrunched together like always and his mouth was still in a firm line, but I couldn't help but think he looked a bit less intimidating when he was asleep. I bit my lip to stop myself from giggling when a few things hit me simultaneously.
First, a wave of strangeness washed over me.
I was aware of the changes between us from the time where we had first met just a few months ago. The air around us used to be filled with electricity, like just one wrong move, and one would zap another in a moment's notice; and now, here I was, in the exact same room where we had our endless arguments, watching him sleep. Of course, I'd seen him sleeping once before, but those were under slightly different condition; now it seemed like he could drop his guard around me. It was too alien of an idea for me, but I felt that it was a nice change. I liked this new atmosphere between us; not so full of tension like before, but not totally friendly. Just a bit relaxed; we could be ourselves around each other.
Second, I realized that it was November.
Graduation was in March, so November was practically the half-way mark. Though I realized we still had a whole bunch of time together, I was painfully aware of the end, and for the first time, 4 months didn't seem like enough. Even after we graduate, Shinji would no doubt be accepted into one of the best colleges. Where would I be? I realized the huge gap between us; something I'd never even noticed before.
Third, my mind wandered back to the phone call with Reiji.
It was something about Shirona going to be moving out in a little bit; the one thing that had haunted my mind these days.
If Shirona was going to move out of Reiji's house soon –the only reason why Shinji had moved out in the first place –I felt that Shinji had no reason to stay anymore; and why would he stay here with me anyways when he was more comfortable with Reiji for obvious reasons? There was no reason why he would pick me over Reiji. Didn't that mean that we didn't have 4 months anymore?
The realization made me feel as though Shinji was going to go somewhere far away and my mind was crowded with worry.
"I need more time." I felt myself mutter as I turned my head to look at the snow.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
I snapped my head back to Shinji in and stepped back in surprise. "Oh! I mean, you were just sleeping there, and I thought you might be cold, a- and, did you know that it's snowing outside?" I finished lamely.
Shinji rubbed his head like he'd just woke up with hangover and asked in an irritated tone that didn't really make me angry, "Can't you be quiet for one second of your life?" (wow, déjà vu…)
"You're welcome." I muttered.
"How long was I out?" He asked. "Couldn't have been more than 20 minutes." I answered instantly, "Why? Do you need to do something? I really think you should be resting, you don't get nearly as much sleep as you used to."
"No, stop being nosy." He sat up, "and as opposed to you who gets twice as much sleep more than you need. More than eight hours of sleep and you still can't wake up early enough for school." "Yeah, I'm working on it." I said softly, not really in the mood to be irritated.
Through the corner of my eye, I saw Shinji's right eyebrow lift ever so slightly as he sensed something wrong. He sighed and pushed the quilt off him, stood up, stretched, and walked around the table to get to his room before pausing.
"You should check over your notes a bit more thoroughly." He said, turning around to face me, "Your 7's look like 2's and your 6's look like 0's. It's ridiculous."
I let out a huff and said haughtily, forgetting that I was too tired to be mad at him (though insulting my penmanship was crossing the line), "I'm sorry if my handwriting's is a mess. Though you shouldn't be talking, your cursive looks more like meaningless child's scribble than words; a-and, where's my book anyways?"
He lifted up an eyebrow, "Don't you get what I'm trying to teach you? Self-discipline is something that you especially need to learn. How do you plan to succeed in your meaningless life without it?" At this point, I was clenching my hands in order to prevent myself from flying over to him and clawing his eyes out.
"But if you're really curious," my ears shamelessly perked up, "if you have some patience and keep on reading, you'll find that the disease isn't life-threatening. Geez, how can you want to know what happens, that badly? I was praying that she'd just die throughout the whole thing."
I stood in stunned silence with wide eyes while Shinji walked into his room.
After a few seconds of silence, I started laughing, and I really couldn't care less whether he heard or not.
I finally calmed down, and went to my room, and slept comfortably with probably the most goofy, stupidest, grin on my face.
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When I got up the next morning (Sunday), it was cold.
I wriggled my toes a bit to get the numbness to go away and took off my covers, which I hastily put back on as soon as the first wave of coldness hit me. Even after the wool pajamas I'd put on, I could still feel the winter air as though I was naked.
After a few minutes of reveling in the warmness of my blanket, I sat up and made an effort to deal with it. I slowly dropped the covers from my shoulders (which just made it worse, by the way) and stood up. I practically danced all the way to the door; the floor was that cold (because the genius that designed the place thought my floor should be wood). Both Shinji and I made an effort to not mess with the thermostat, but I thought that he would agree that this was a bit too cold.
Apparently, he didn't think so.
"Don't we have any extra blankets around here?" Shinji asked with a not-so-subtle annoyed tone.
"Well, it'd be nice if I didn't have to cook with a 10 pound blanket covering my shoulders." I said whilst rolling my eyes, "There's nothing wrong with using a few extra bucks to keep ourselves warm. I'm sure everyone else does it."
"You might be able to magically pull cash out of your pockets, but I can't." He said, not even looking at me, which made me really annoyed, I must admit, "It's not like you can't fix being cold in the winter, and we have leftovers in the refrigerator." "Oh, I wasn't aware that your majesty was okay with leftover food." I said sarcastically, to which he didn't reply.
I just sighed and got up to take out whatever we had for dinner last night.
As I opened the refrigerator, I shivered slightly. We didn't have much leftover, as I found out, from the night before, but I decided it was enough for breakfast. (and he deserved whatever small portion he got.)
The dishes clanked together as I set them in the sink for washing later and went back to my room to find a sweater or something.
I dug deep into my closet, and after a few minutes of searching, I'd finally gotten as deep as I could, and I still couldn't find something warm enough to wear, though searching had gotten me a bit sweaty.
My eyebrows rose, however, at what I did find at the back of my closet.
It weighed a ton and it took a lot of effort to drag it out my room, but I managed. I could feel Shinji's eyes on me as I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand and let out a huff of satisfaction.
I turned to him and looked at him expectantly; as though I expected him to know what it was I had just dragged out of my room (which I kind of did). He just rolled his eyes at me, muttering, "Why do I get the feeling that another stupid plan of yours if formulating in your head?" I scowled at him.
"Don't you know what this is?" I asked, patting it like I would a fond pet of mine.
"Am I supposed to?" He asked, one eyebrow raised high, as it often was around me.
"It's a kotatsu!" I exclaimed, with a big grin on my face, lifting my arms as though I was presenting something extraordinary (which it kinda was).
His eyebrow just rose a bit higher than usual.
I admit, I was a bit disappointed. I mean, I always looked forward to unfolding the kotatsu with my mother when the weather took a turn for the worse. Especially when we put up the kotatsu that my family had used even before I was born which was the very one that I had just pulled out from the abyssal depths of my closet. This particular kotatsu had a very homey feeling to me; and it holds a special place in my heart, however cheesy that sounds.
"Well, you know what a kotatsu is, right?" I asked him.
"Of course." He answered.
"Well, have you ever used one?" I pressed, crossing my arms.
He shook his head.
"Never."
I gaped at him. What respectable Japanese person would've never used a kotatsu? It was unheard of! And I never would've expected this from Shinji that was even more unspeakable!
"I mean, my brother wanted one, but we never bought one." He said, looking a bit offended, "It's not like it's a must have thing in a home."
"Are you kidding me?" I said, momentarily snapping out of my shock, "You must be the first person I've ever met that's never used a kotatsu." "Like I said, it's not like you need it." He muttered. I promptly ignored him and bent over to try to unfold the kotatsu.
After a little bit of struggling, I looked over my shoulder and asked, "Are you just going to sit there and watch me struggle?" "It's better than helping you." He answered. I gave him a ferocious glare (if I do say so myself) until he sighed, stood up, and crossed the room to help me lift the kotatsu.
He hesitated a bit and asked, "Wouldn't it be smarter to fold our regular table first?" I blushed a bit at my stupidity before agreeing with him and he rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath. Something about living with girls.
Shinji started folding the table up on his own before he looked over and asked sarcastically, "Aren't you going to help me?" "I'm sure you can handle it on your own," I said with a grin, "You're big and strong."
I thought I saw a small blush brush his face, but by the time I blinked, it was gone so I waved it off as a trick of the light. The fact that I had hallucinated for a moment was much more probable than Shinji blushing.
After the regular fold out table was out of the way, we then proceeded to put the futon into place. I blushed heavily as we both spread out the futon together and a fleeting thought of feeling like a married couple crossed my mind before I hastily shook my head to get rid of it.
I rolled my eyes as Shinji made sure that the futon was laid out evenly and after he was confident that there were no odd lumps poking out from under the futon, we both started hefting the kotatsu; that is, until he decided that I was a nuisance more than help and declared that he would do it himself.
Geez, I should compliment him more often. Maybe if I told him he was a good chef he'd make breakfast, lunch and dinner for us too? Then a bad image of burnt food crossed my mind and I dismissed the thought.
It didn't take very long for Shinji to unfold the kotatsu. I mean, it was just like the regular table, just a whole bunch heavier. After he was done, he stepped back and tilted his head, as though he was looking at the results of one of his works or something. I did the same, though I was trying to take in the fact that the kotatsu looked a bit out of place in this apartment than me and mom's old house.
"Now what?" Shinji asked after a period of admiring the kotatsu.
I gave him a weird look and asked, "What do you mean now what? We just sit under the covers." I quickly hid a smile at the disappointed look on his face. It looked a little bit like a kid that discovered that he had gotten something totally different than what he wanted for Christmas, which was a first for Shinji.
"Did you expect something more?" I asked teasingly.
All he did was grunt.
I stretched a bit, standing on my tip toes and reaching for the ceiling. "Well, I think I'll be alright now." I said as I snuggled under the covers of the kotatsu. I shivered slightly as the feeling of my old home returned. It was a nice, comfortable atmosphere that I was familiar with. I was surprised that even after six months of being in my closet, the covers still smelled like my old house. It lifted my spirits.
I got up quickly and made myself some hot chocolate and grabbed some tangerines and ran under the covers again, changing channels trying to find anything interesting to watch.
"This is it?" I heard Shinji ask behind me, "This is the purpose of a kotatsu?"
I glanced back at him with an offended look plastered onto my face, "What do you mean this is it? Of course this isn't the purpose of a kotatsu. You'll be surprised to find that the kotatsu can do some pretty unbelievable things." Shinji scoffed.
"I'll believe it when I see it." He said.
I smiled suddenly and patted the empty space next to me, "Then why don't you sit down and give it a try?"
He sighed before moving to sit next to me, and though I was surprised, I made it a fact to not let it show on my face.
We fought a little bit over the remote, but after I made it clear that I wasn't going to watch the news all day, he quit making a fuss and all was silent.
My past experiences of sitting under a kotatsu with my family had never been so tense or as silent as my moment with Shinji. All he did was rest his head on his hand as he silently read one of his big books on the shelf.
I stared at him for a little bit and was so concentrated on the way that his finger would tap the page he was reading that I didn't realize that he had caught me staring.
"Is this what you usually did with your family?" He asked me in an unbelievably slightly teasing tone.
"Wha-? I mean… Well, my mom and I usually just drank tea and ate fruit while we watched TV, but that was after it was only the two of us." Shinji's eyebrows scrunched very slightly. "What about your…" "He's dead." I said promptly, peeling another tangerine, "He used to drink," At this Shinji's eyebrows meshed together, "He wasn't abusive or anything, I mean I loved my dad, I can only remember good things about him, but he was diagnosed with stomach cancer."
His expression loosened at that and we lapsed back into silence.
I failed to concentrate on the program on the television and instead shoved a piece of tangerine in Shinji's face.
He looked a bit confused, staring pointedly at the tangerine before giving me a questioning look.
"It's part of the magic of the kotatsu." I said. "Having someone feed you tangerines?" Shinji scoffed, but nevertheless, he ate the tangerine.
Right out of my hand.
For a moment, my breath got caught somewhere along my throat and everything got warmer, but I bit my lip and tried to look cool. I tried not to look at Shinji so much after that.
After a bit of dozing, I stretched. "I think I'll go to sleep." I declared, and curled up on the floor, still warm under the kotatsu.
Shinji thumped me in the head and told me to go to my own room to take a nap, but all I did was scrunch my eyebrows together and refused to respond, and he finally let me do whatever I wanted.
I smiled as I wriggled around under the covers of the kotatsu and scrunched myself into an even tinier ball as thoughts of tangerines and hot chocolate danced in my head like sugar plum fairies as I drifted off to sleep.
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It was really warm when I woke up.
Unusually warm.
It felt as though I was clutching a really big teddy bear.
The teddy bear was warm, and soft, and really, really comfortable; it was big and cuddly and gave me a sense of security that I had never experienced before. I fit into its arms perfectly, and I felt as though I could be there, in its arms forever if I wanted. It was also really heavy and had purple fur…
Purple…
My eyes snapped fully open and I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep any kind of noise from escaping. I gently unwrapped my arms from around Shinji's waist and tried to crawl out of his arms, but all that did was make him grab onto me tighter (which I didn't really hate…).
My breath slowed down as I grasped the entirety of the situation though the room just got a thousand degrees warmer. It was starting to get uncomfortably hot, but I was trying not to move so much as to wake Shinji.
I let out a slow breath as quietly as I could, trying to cool myself down and stared at Shinji for a little bit. I mean, he was at least a little bit easy on the eyes when he was sleeping, and this was the closest I'd ever been to him.
I'd started dozing off for a little bit when I heard him snort and start waking up.
"What?" He exclaimed as he quickly let go of me and I backed away from him as though just being near him burned me (which it kinda did.)
"I-I was trying to get out… Y-you- why were you even holding onto me while I slept?" I stammered, "I could file for sexual harassment. "M-me?" He stammered back (a first), "You were the one that held onto me first!"
"How in the world would you know?" I exclaimed.
"W-what?" He asked, taken aback.
After a few moments of staring and unbearable silence, I stood up, and muttered, "I think I'll go sleep in my room." I was painfully aware of his stare piercing my back as I shuffled over to the door.
I closed my bedroom door behind me and sat on my bed for a bit before sinking my head into my hands with a groan.
I mean, I knew a kotatsu was supposed to bring people closer together, but that had been a bit too close.
"What do I do?" I asked no one in particular (except myself of course.).
For the rest of the day, I stayed in my room, pondering on exactly how much longer it would take before I was so deep into Shinji that I wouldn't be able to turn back.