A/N: Hi, this one-shot series is definitely back, with new inspiration. This story, however, is not related to the past chapters (each one is independent), and was a product of fangirling tendencies that were cultivated in such a short time. Well, this was requested, so as requests necessitate, they could either be approved or rejected. Who am I to reject an opportunity? Bleeeeh. Therefore, here it is, Anon, the product.
Warning: This story does not coincide with the specific events that happened in MSGM and OSMM light novels. Neither is it related to the past chapters.
HOW THEY WISH IT WAS RAINING
-TheSilentReader-
CHAPTER 10: Yoshino and Yuuki
Observations
Yoshino could specifically remember that Yumi gave Yoshino her home number when they became friends, after (1) Yumi was later inducted as Rosa Chinensis en bouton and when (2) she was able to support the Yellow bouton's protégé on her surgery. Yumi wanted to share to her newfound friend that friends should talk all the time, and Yoshino had stood silent, taking Yumi's words all inside her head, because she thought that Yumi was the closest thing to a person whose whole attention was not just focused on her family. Many are like that, but not many were actually as harmless and as interesting as she was. That fascinates Yoshino.
Yoshino was imagined that she was utterly repressed.
Yeah, Yoshino, the first year student who happened to be voted as the model petite souer with Rei-sama as her counterpart as , was quite sure that nothing exists in her world except her cousin. She knew everything about Rei that she knew the start of Rei-chan's period every month.
That's why it was a shock to her that the person who answered the phone at the Fukuzawa residence was a boy, whose voice was a little perky for a fifteen-year old, as Yumi later claimed his age. Boy. "Who answered the phone, Yumi-san?" She questioned her friend a millisecond after Yumi breathed a greeting on the telephone's receiver.
"My brother," Yumi said absently; her mouth on autopilot.
"Brother? You have a brother?"
Yumi jolted from her semi-stupor as she gathered her thoughts to ask Yoshino (she was a bit surprised by the inquiry): "Uh, um, yeah? Is . . . that a problem?"
Not at all. Yoshino told that to herself, as she pounded her head to the hard wood of her study table with a small thud, just to remind herself of how daft she was in choosing her words. Did Yumi find the question offensive? Their friendship was still new; Yoshino has the tendency to be misunderstood. She asked herself in a panicked speed, because if she had been in Yumi's shoes (and Rei happened to be like Yumi's bother—an immediate relative), she would be taken aback by the question that has an undesirable subtext. But Yumi was readable even though distance and telephone connection separate their situation from a very personal conversation; therefore, Yoshino assumed that no harm was done.
It's just that, it is just hard to imagine that Yumi has a brother. Who was also a first year. Yumi's more like the lone child of the family, like Yoshino. Therefore, with the speed of deduction Yoshino was doing while Yumi laughed on the phone, she concluded that Fukuzawa Yuuki was her fraternal twin. "Oh, nothing like that," Yumi corrected, "He's ten months younger than me. So, you see, I'm an Onee-san." Yumi giggled.
Yoshino couldn't imagine that scenario.
She could imagine Yumi to have siblings, but she never appeared to be the oldest one.
For her, Yumi was ever the obedient, cheerful flower of an imouto.
But then, again, something in her wanted to remember something.
The first time he actually saw Shimazu Yoshino was when he went to the cultural festivities as per invitation of her older sister. The family was given enough tickets to see his sister's performance in Cinderella, but that was not the case. Even without his sister's help, he could still able to attend the festival with the help of his sempai, Kashiwagi Suguru. He was the Prince Charming (obviously), and Yuuki was needed as his responsibility to assist him with his sempai's duties (obviously), but he needed not to let Yumi know that (obviously) because he knew Yumi doesn't like his sempai that much (well, not really obvious).
He was able to dodge his older sister, but he could not dodge everyone in the Yamayurikai. Doing that was too impossible a feat. After all, he was here to assist the President of Hanadera, even though he still didn't understand Kashiwagi-san's reasons for liking him.
"You remind me of someone."
A girl with black, long, twin braided hair commented weakly beside him as he looked for the remaining accessories for his sempai's costume in a box. He was shocked at the looming voice, but he tried to calm himself. He looked at her curiously, by which her manner of "letting herself be seen" to him was contradictory to what he assumed her to be: frail. But she was not as frail as she looked. Her peculiar and surprising introduction gave her away.
It wasn't as if he couldn't blame his own harsh judgment for the girl; he, too, was ordinary enough in a sea of high-class male students of Hanadera—too ordinary, in fact, but his batchmates regarded him well, somehow—but this girl, gentle she appeared, should not be scaring him that way, even though he was in the Rose mansion (obviously), he was in this girl's teritorry (assumingly obvious, her words advised him that she belonged to the Yamayurikai), and that she made it seem to appear that he was in the wrong place (obviously, something in this building made him feel he intruded far too much).
But he never dared to mention that he was Yumi's sister, just for the sake of doing his job, because he wouldn't want to be scrutinized by her. He assumed that Yumi and this girl knew each other. Yumi was working for the council's school play, it seemed, because (1) she mentioned Kashiwagi's name one breakfast morning, just in time of Kashiwagi's absences in the council meetings, when in fact, he was on the other side of the hill, Kashiwagi being Kashiwagi, (2) she was very late coming home, and (3) she was too loud when she memorized her lines rigoriously in the privacy of her bedroom.
Just the sharpness of her probing eyes was enough for him to discern that this girl notices too much. He just wanted to be here, in cognito. Thus, he replied vaguely, "I'm here for Kashiwagi-sama's accessories. Are you from the student council?" omitting the term:Yamayurikai.
"Yes. The accessories are here."
She gave him the articles that he wanted, right away. She did not bother rummaging the whole box to get what he needed; it was just glaringly obvious that he was Kashiwagi-sempai's assistant because of (1) he wore a Hanadera uniform, (2) he dared to come in the Rose Mansion, which no one dared, and (3) he was a first year, as indicated by the Roman numeral on his uniform's collar. She was sharp that she knew what he wanted just by looking at him.
She couldn't deduce though, who was the person he reminded her with.
He didn't give his name; she didn't give hers, either. "Thanks," he said. He bowed for her efforts.
When Yoshino discovered that Yumi has a little brother in that telephone call, she immediately remembered that time in the Rose Mansion about the boy who asked her for the Hanadera President's accessories. It wasn't as if there was a nagging feeling of solving of who he reminded her of, but the idea just came to her like a wave of unwanted, dusty wind. But she wasn't even sure that that boy who wore a Hanadera uniform having a Roman numeral "I" on the collar and came into the mansion without even blinking twice, was the same boy who Yumi's mother once nurtured inside her belly a month after she gave birth to her.
Hence, the sorting out of information stored in her brain commenced as if she was mentally producing the monotonic sounds in Morse Code,while she realized that that boy reminded her of Yumi: the vibrant hue of chocolate brown of their hair and eyes, the similar shape of their eyes and faces, their unruly and spiky fringes, their bone structure, their general ordinary-ness. Her deduction wasn't a praise or insult; they were just observations.
Just as she put the phone down gently after talking with Yumi—just like what friends normally do—she added one thing in her cerebral list of what made Yumi and, er, Yuuki different from each other aside from their sex and age: his eyes were much sharper than hers.
He found out that her name was Yoshino when he asked her sister to let go of the telephone line that night (it was his turn to use it), because he accidentally heard them talking when he lift the speaker to his ears when he was about to dial Kobayashi's number.
He quickly put the phone down, as if hearing girls talk was somewhat poisonous for his hearing system and psychological balance. But he came up with the conclusion that everyone has the same problems, it seemed, because the third years are now graduating, and everyone in the lower grades needed to endow a special tribute for their pleasant parting. Yumi was agitated while she talked to Yoshino, while the latter seemed to be thinking.
And when Yumi asked him of something to entertain the Roses, he could have sworn that everything that was happening to their lives in their separate schools was similar, if not, parallel. He did this party dance before—forced, he lividly remembered—and now Yumi was going to do that same. He gave his all in teaching her the dance, because, in turn, her performance would also reflect his confidence in teaching. But Yumi seemed to be doing at the entertainment department very well; how could he not commend Yumi for that?
"Yuuki is teaching me the loach dance." He heard her sister on the phone.
He gulped. He forgot that that girl—er, Yoshino—also belonged in the student council with Yumi. His sister told him that the performance was for the Roses. What would she think while she watched Yumi dance?
When he thought that he really didn't want to eavesdrop in the conversation, it was actually ten seconds before he realized what he was really doing.
Because he observed he could actually hear Yoshino-san—that's what her sister called her—think. He could actually imagine her concentrated face and focused sharp eyes.
Maybe their similarities were more prominent before than now. The second time Yumi's brother met Shimazu Yoshino, it was when Ogasawara Sachiko had a fainting spell in the middle of the paved road near the front gate of Lillian Academy because of two things: (1) the hot weather, and (2) the number of unknown men blocking her pathway.
He wanted to help. But he didn't.
He was the first person in the Hanadera group that rushed to Yumi's aid as she helped her poor Onee-sama from kissing the ground she usually walked on. Thank heavens for Rei-sama, the tall woman with short dark blond hair, that he won't be the one holding Sachiko-sama. He couldn't say this, but he was critical about human relations:
(1) Yumi would fight tooth, nail, special designation as Rosa Chinensis en bouton petite soeur, and seniority as his biological older sister to be the first to offer health and strength to the poor woman.
Another: (2) everyone knows how sensitive Sachiko was with men (subsection 1, he's one; and subsection 2: he's definitely not immune to Sachiko-sama's feminine appeal, therefore not trusting himself to stop from stopping all human faculties once he touched her).
Last but not the least; it is never good to have bad blood with your council. If he proceeded: (3) his counterparts at Hanadera would rip his balls for being too unassumingly close to the Lillian Princess (they should have done that instead of him; hopeless bastards, he thought wryly), which he added two more subsections to this number. Subsection 1: The straight men will rip his balls off for being the first to touch her, rendering him a sly bastard, and subsection 2: Alice will also rip his balls off for doing something that Alice considered sacrilegious to his self-proclaimed Onee-sama, rendering him a sly bastard.
Which he could never, ever, ever think of doing.
It was when the same girl—Yoshino-san, he presumed—looked at him with entertained eyes, and told him, "Everything's going to be fine. Rei-chan has her now."
She looked at him with all-knowing eyes, hypnotic and intelligent, and he began to generate anxiety that she somehow knew what he was thinking all that time. He became intimidated at the thought, but how could he just react, when she say those words with a seer-like certainty, like she has a long beard and a long, pointy ears and holding a longer staff and donning a much acre-long white robe, predicting your future?
(You shall not pass!)
"Uhm, er, yeah. I think so too."
Add that smirk that she produced after his failure to produce proper sentence. This is just beneath his intelligence.
"I think she'll be fine if we could just have a proper meeting later, in a more comfortable room." Yoshino said to everyone who was still trying to fan Sachiko-sama with anything that she could scour from her bookbag.
He stood there staring at her with equal regard on her quick decision-making, and as the current Student Council President of Hanadera Academy for Boys, he agreed, but in a much more dignified manner, "I am sure we could arrange something for your convenience."
When the other Roses were concerned with the wilted Red Rose, Yuuki took a hold to the words of the Yellow bouton who stepped up to handle the problem. It was as if an informal recognition was held with their gazes, because that's what leaders do: they communicate even by just looking.
The third time Yoshino met Fukuzawa Yuuki was the day that: (1) Alice-kun, the secretary of the Hanadera student council, had relentlessly embraced Ogasawara Sachiko as he cried his heart out for an onee-sama like her; (2) Yumi had firstly exhibited her possessiveness openly for her Onee-sama, which is what any petite soeur would do if somebody else tried to steal her grande soeur away; and (3) Yuuki-san finally announced that he was the new Hanadera President.
Yoshino wasn't even surprised.
She noticed his inducted superiority the moment Yumi's brother suggested to them about securing an appointment with the revered Roses, in the midst of Sachiko's fainting spell weeks ago. He was the one who gave a suggestion, and while his staff remained quiet, they agreed to him without even talking to them. The tall twins who, even at first glance, were much seniors to Yuuki, just remained quiet as they hear his suggestion. They exhibited subordination even though they were his seniors. Another was the secretary, Alice, and his closeness to Yuuki-san every time they appear for meetings, proved that Alice was in tuned with his duties, noting his President's words. And Kobayashi and Magane were very much enjoying being his leutenants.
It was quite amazing how he seemed to hold his council firmly with his leadership, and Yoshino noticed it with one look when they went inside the conference room and saw them sitting uniformly in one line.
She also noticed that they sat by age. Yuuki was at the farthest from the Yakushiji twins, and he was sitting across Yamayurikai's youngest (Noriko), which decidedly concludes that the President was the youngest of the Hanadera Council.
That realization seemed to pique her interest more for Yumi's brother who had been the person from the Hanadera to have the longest presentation of their proposals. Her deductions being proven hint after hint by just observing him, but when she realized that she became too smug to think that she had figured who the Hanadera President was even before Kobayashi-san jokingly suggested a guessing game, a thought instantly struck her—she had been thinking about this boy entirely too much.
She being struck with that thought that she had been thinking about that boy entirely too much was the moment Yuuki smiled confidently at the Yamayurikai crowd after he introduced himself once more (as the Hanadera President) and bowed.
Yumi, who was still gaping and had her jaw hanging dangerously, couldn't get over the fact that his brother had taken a much more nerve-wrecking responsibility and the fact that he kept that from her. Yoshino and Yumi looked at Shimako, who was quite appreciative of the entertainment Yumi was indulging the group (by being Yuuki's older sister, pretty much), and commented that Yuuki was already with Shimako's level, only that Yuuki doesn't share his power with another president, unlike with the Lillian council's system.
Shimako spoke in her angelic, soft voice, "His occupation as the President is harder than my role as the Rosa Gigantea." Shimako seldom express her thoughts unless required, and with her sudden vocalization, Yoshino noticed Shimako's high regard for that boy with brown, spiky hair, who happened to be Yumi's brother.
Rei voice was the first to snap Yoshino off her wandering thoughts with the usual, "Are you all right, Yoshino?" and answered her with the usual absent "no" that made Rei-chan prod more. She teased Yoshino about thinking too much, and when Yoshino haughtily denied it (just for the sake of playfight), Rei mentioned that she was still looking at the Fukuzawa siblings who walked uniformly from the gates of Lillian Academy. Rei mentioned that they appeared and felt so similar.
"No, not really." She blankly said, and then walked to the direction of their homes.
Rei just shrugged, knowing that Yoshino was right, because Yoshino had sorted out her thoughts that had resulted to a declared deduction.
In a sense, it's better to watch every Hanadera student grapple their way to hordes of competition from up the scaffold than beside it, the fact that Yoshino couldn't see the whole carnage of limbs and bodies just for the sake of being near (at least six feet) the Roses. Yoshino huffed in boredom as she watched Yumi there, up on the scaffold, guarding her onee-sama in case Sachiko-sama would switch auto-pilot and jump off from her seat and run away like a madman because of restlessness.
Yoshino wished she's up the scaffold with Rei to watch men below her; at least, she had something funny and sadistic to watch. But, as she stretched her legs to ease their tension, she noticed that both Fukuzawa siblings were there, guarding the Ice Princess.
Yuuki-san, she called him, was smirking at every wrong answer the competitors had given, forcing them to slide down once more and repeat the grueling process. Yumi doesn't wear that smirk, she noted. She wished that she could hear every question—what were those that made Yuuki-san enjoy this so much? Were they as mundane as trivia? Or more on the academic side? Because he was the one who made the questions.
When the Hanadera President himself guided them to the school gates and bid them farewell and thanks for the Yamayurikai's efforts, he was lively with the rest of the members while Yumi and Sachiko were steps behind them, seemingly needed to be private as much as possible because of the little public display of emotions a while ago.
At that time, he appeared to be bottling his rage as marched to the center of commotion, and when he appeared before Panda and a distressed Sachiko (hugging each other), his rage transformed into an expression of relief. He even unconsciously but drammatically breathed out and smiled wildly as he watched Panda hugged the distressed Sachiko tighter. Yoshino noticed that the transition of his expressions were not in bursts of instants like Yumi, but gradual in evolution. It was as if his brain was slowly thinking, but then Yoshino read that as how he internalize and process thoughts—deliberate and measured—and they reflect on his face.
He must know something why Sachiko-sama was hugging the unknown Panda (was that because it was kind to Yumi before, giving her candy and all that ruffling of hair? Yoshino thought sarcastically), that even Yoshino couldn't guess the person in the bloated costume until Kashiwagi-san (to her surprise) appeared and offed Panda's head with one swift pull, and revealed Yumi's face, wet with culmination of sweat and tears.
The Roses conveyed their enjoyment in doing their duty as representatives of the Lillian Academy, the boutons behind them, loyal leutenants they were. But Yoshino couldn't see the President's expression now, because Rei was ever so tall and that the sun was behind Yuuki-san, rendering her vision of him just a silhouette.
She hates it when she couldn't see and read faces. More and more like with Eriko-sama in a nutshell: unreadable and unpredictable. It's awful. If only that the school gates didn't face the west that late afternoon, if only that Rei's back wasn't blocking her view, she could have seen the difference of Yuuki-san's smile from Yumi's.
It came to her that she liked spotting out differences on the Fukuzawa siblings, only that she was more invested with the brother, because she didn't see him that much, unlike her classmate Yumi, from the Pine class, same as hers.
The first thing that came in his mind as he read the script of Torikaebaya Monogatari given by Yumi that night: he wondered how long Yoshino's hair was. That thought pattern had nestled in his brain when he realized that the play was set on the ancient time, hence the letting-the-hair-down. No maiden wore her hair in a tight bun that time. Thusly: Yuuki already observed that Yoshino-san's braids fall until the small of her back, and given that they were braided, at least he could assume that the length of hair would increase by about a fifth, if he were to solve the original hair length. It would much very long then, he mused, almost reaching the lower curves of Yoshino-san's butt. He removed a trivial realization of his sister's friend in haste. But then, he wondered how she'd look on their next joint meeting, where the all actors for the play would be wearing their costumes as a commemoration for a good partnership for both schools' councils.
But the a point in the length of hair nearest the head would coil more acutely than another point farthest from the head, so the length hair (as a bundle) decreased its length as the end point moves away from the point of reference . . . no. He must not think of her too—of her hair too much.
It's just bloody hair.
But he gaped the day when he saw her walked into the room on her kimono on, and he gaped because his hypothesis was wrong: her hair reached the part before the swell of her buttocks. Her hair when braided only coiled less than what he assumed, and that he wrongly calculated it because of one simple mistake: his mind assumed that she has her whole hair braided, and not into two. That makes the braid less coiled. But he knew that she has two braids, but his mistake was treating that a full braid has the same coiling as when the full hair is split to two and braided . . . .
He was gaping at her, when her hair was let loose and she was in a kimono so heavy because of its layers and layers. It was shiny, that black, black length of hair. How could that even be so naturally straight, when all the time she had it in braids? Doesn't that curl the hair? Doesn't tying it all the time makes it (that long) susceptible to breakage? Yumi said that one time after she had her hair trimmed.
He wondered and wondered, and all the time he was staring at her long, black hair, as it swayed and swayed. He wondered how it felt with his fingertips; he wondered how long how he could just stop staring at it.
Then, he realized that he had to wear a black wig as long as Yoshino's hair when Sachiko-sama had thought of something much more interesting. Actors playing women and actresses playing men. Everyone stared at Sachiko's audacity. Touko-san gleamed because this was her first male part; Alice-kun was the same when for the first time, Alice will literally and liberately be Alice. Yuuki got what he wished—to touch a long, black hair—but it was not Yoshino's; it was a wig plastered on his head, length until his lower back.
He wondered again, why Yoshino wasn't bothered of how heavy butt-long hair was.
When everyone wondered how the same Yuuki-san and Yumi-san if they were to put the same clothes together (first, in the Hanadera festival; second, in the Torikaebaya Monogatari), Yoshino thought of the things that differs the brother from the sister. All the time that when she saw him in the maiden's costume, her eyes scanned how different he looked from Yumi—he was muscular, that the thickness of the fabric of layers and layers of kimono couldn't hide the sharp contours of his shoulders and neck, that his chest were broader than Yumi's soft and slim (and admittedly, plump) one.
He was uncomfortable though, when he touched his new wig from the base to the tips, as if the general heaviness of it was the only puzzling burden of the universe. She thought those as he circled awkwardly and lifted his arms to test the weight of the sleeves. It was as if he couldn't believe he was wearing a noblewoman's kimono. She bet that he was just relieved that the change of clothes did not go all through the underpants. But, she observed that he wasn't aware that he showed his discomfort like an eyesore, that when the whole endeavour was finished, he loosened the lapels of his kimono revealing the full length of his neck, the lines of his collarbone, and half the span of his shoulders and his upper pectorals. Then, he disappeared from the door of the room to change his clothes.
Taking a peak at his skin was just an accident, she convinced herself.
Her hair was in a bun and was secured in her headdress; now, her neck was exposed. The entire delicate cylinder of her neck became his subject for observation, but he tried not to be so obvious about it. He tried not to observe too much. He focused more on his script, the parts that he initially didn't even bother to memorize before.
He was so prepared as the lead male character.
"Damn, this wig is so heavy."
"Kobayashi-san, of course it's heavy."
"How does Yoshino-san, Sachiko-san and Shimako-san handle this thing, I really don't know. Especially Yoshino-san. Her hair . . ."
"I wonder how it felt if I touch . . ."
"What?"
"What."
"What're you sayin', Yukichi?"
"'What am I saying?': go on with your lines, Kobayashi."
The next meeting, Yoshino noticed that he memorized all his lines. He took little peaks in his own script, and he was almost as good as Touko-chan (as expected; she is from the Drama Club) and Alice-kun (as expected; he loves being a woman).
He was just looking at her hair longer than usual. She looked away in annoyance.
She hoped, slight annoyance creeping at her, to punish herself for wishing Yuuki-san wasn't anything like that.
The only time they could both look at the other was the time that they were in a scene, although not together. Their scenes together were few, and it was more of a comedy than anything they imagined of a scene of them together. But they, separately, unknowingly from each other, wanted to just to stare through the other's eyes to see if he or she could read the other through them. They would consider it as a challenge—the last person to look away from the other's eyes would win. But of course, it never happened, not when they were totally engrossed with the play.
And not when they try not to be alone together.
When she served a cup of tea, he could smell her cologne as she bent a little from behind to his side to settle the cup and saucer in front of him. He tried not to turn to its direction, and just focused on the steam that danced like a snake being charmed from its box.
But he was very much distracted by a braid of her hair hanging dangerously on his shoulder. And wanted to release it from its tie.
When he dropped and slouched to arrange his school shoes at the foyer of the auditorium, she caught a sight of the top view of the nape of his neck and his shoulders, watching them move very slightly as he placed his feet into them. She turned away quickly, and excused herself silently to get her own shoes from the shelf, and drop her leather shoes unceremonously to the ground to insert sluggishly her feet to them without any more tiring movement.
But as she bent her head down, he stood gently and looked up. Their eyes met.
"Good evening. Fukuzawa residence."
"Um, hello. This is—"
"Yumi! Yoshino-san is on the phone!"
". . ."
"Oh, hello Yoshino-san—"
"Well, that was rude. Wait, how did he know. . . ?"
"Yoshino-san . . . is it something . . . I've said?"
Neither wanted to be near each other, and wanted it that way until the festival ends. After that, everything should be easy. They won't see each other as frequent until that time comes. No more stupid observations.
When the play ended, the whole Hanadera council was relieved of their responsibilities, thus went separately to enjoy the festival until it last. Yuuki was alone, at the door of the storage room at the first floor of the Rose Mansion and just finished stuffing the rest of the boys' costumes to a single box. It was the least he could do, because he was the sole representative that the Hanadera was supposed to send to the Yamayurikai on their school festival, just like what Kashiwagi-sempai had done a year ago. Instead, the whole council was included.
At least he was alone in the mansion, where it was much quieter than outside; the noise was muffled from within. Near the door of the storage room, he sat and enjoyed the cool floor, until another door bolted open from the outside, and revealed Yoshino-san.
Her hair was unbraided, and remained unadulterately straight, coating her back, much darker than the Lillian uniform she wore.
The look on her face was scrutinizing; her eyes appeared sharp but darker than before, just like the rest of her—her hair, her black, leather shoes, her pristine uniform. Her skin seemed to be . . . radiantly pale, but he wasn't sure if that was the appropriate phrase to describe it.
She asked solidly, "You want a cup of tea?"
He gulped.
She felt tired after the whole play. Even though it was thoroughly enjoyable to play nobleman, it took a toll on her and she already felt fatigue, unlike others who were at the peak of their energy even this late afternoon. She was still recovering from her illness, but she couldn't wait to do more.
But she needed to rest. And to rest is to go to the Mansion, not to the Infirmary, because she wouldn't want to be much of a burden to the poor nurse. She has to enjoy the festival too—no, actually, that's not the reason. Yoshino just didn't want to go there; pride had her directed to the Rose Mansion. So, Rose Mansion it was.
But when she saw Yuuki-san sitting on the floor near the storage room, she stopped momentarily just to look at him, to validate if he was really there. His brown, spiky hair and fringe slicked back and slightly wet (he must have done that so the hair would not impede his comfort). He was wearing a white, collared shirt, the cuffs folded to his elbows, the two top buttons unfastened, and its hem tucked still underneath the black, leather belt and gray slacks. His gray shirt coat was beside him, the gold Roman numeral "II" pin fixed on its collar gleamed against its bleak background. His face and uncovered ears a little flushed.
He turned to her, looking surprised.
She would be lying to herself if she didn't found him quite handsome that very moment, when he was ruffled and loose, and the white cloth covering his shoulders and arms was spread out that she could already distinguish lean but statuesque muscles underneath. She noted to herself, she should not be staring.
But she could not help not walking away either. Therefore, she asked, bravely, "You want a cup of tea?"
The stairs creaked more loudly than before; they walked uniformly, step by step, gauging each other's rhythm. It was quieter in the second floor, and with Yoshino's hospitality, she opened the Biscuit door for him. He silently thanked her by closing it when she went inside.
"Sit," she said.
"Should I be the one preparing tea? You look pale." He said when she proceeded to the counter.
She remained quiet, stating (obviously) that she didn't want him to help. He sat and remained mummed, until the steaming hot tea was served in front of him, and she sat opposite of him from across the table, and placed her own cup and saucer in front of her.
A vase filled with a bundle of Rosa foetida bloomed between them.
"Would you like to go out with me?"
They both ask each other, simultaneously, after a lifetime of silence and an eternity of staring at each other's eyes, obscuring the Rosa foetida flowers to their peripheral view in the whole duration of their stare.
The tea was already lukewarm; they both felt it with their fingers at the body of their porcelain cup, but they didn't mentally deduced the exact length of time they were staring at each other by loosely calculating the process of heat transferred from the cup to the surroundings and deriving them with x as the time, like what they studied in their elementary Physics.
Does she like Physics? Or was he alone in that department?
But whatever the duration was, that's how long they looked at each other. But it didn't seem to matter.
She was the first to recover. "I always see you looking at me."
It looked like she was challenging him of who was the first to notice the other (the first lose), but she just said it because she just observed it. Nothing more.
He replied, "And I always see you looking at me, too."
That was also an observation. That was now settled.
"You were very rude the last time I called." She accused weakly.
"I'm sorry."
"Yet you instantly knew it was me."
"You have a distinctive voice."
Silence. They stopped talking again. Then, Yoshino was opened—then closed her mouth like a fish. It's as if she wanted something to ask him—
"Are you gay?"
"No." His response: abrupt, critical. Hypothesis countered, number 1, thought Yoshino.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course, I'm sure. Where did you get that idea?"
"When you're looking at my hair."
"Your . . . hair." He deadpanned. He did remember how long her hair was, but not that way. It's just an observation.
"I was observing you observing my hair, then I thought, no straight man would do that." She reasoned out.
"I like girls with long hair. You have a long hair. You have the longest hair of all Yamayurikai members. So, I like you." He blushed. Hypothesis countered, number 2.
"And I'm a girl." Then, an idea sprang on her mind. She looked gravely. "You liked me for my long hair."
"Well, that's one—but, but . . ."
"So, you just liked me because of my hair."
He stood up quickly; the chair creeked horribly. "Lookit, Yoshino-san. You're more than just your hair. You see?"
"You liking me is more than your hair fetish, you mean."
"Well—uh, okay, fine, If that's what you think . . ."
"Okay."
"Or do you want other proof?" He then suggested. Okay okay okay okay okay, fine, fine, hypothesis countered, number 3.
"I'm just kidding. You don't have to."
"So that's settled?"
"Yup." She sipped once more to her tea.
Silence once more. Then he blurted out: "I don't know anything about dating."
She replied quickly. "Me either."
"We could consult someone for that." Obviously.
"Yes, I know."
"Then," he started. He gulped but his salivary glands decided to malfunction at this hour of need, so he took his cup swiftly to his lips and managed a sip, then put it down once more. He continued, "What shall we do?"
He was smiling now, just as he smiled when he enjoys his work with his council and Yamayurikai, and when he was with his older sister, but she always knew there was a difference to this smile from the rest that she had seen in the past. She thought, a little biased, that this different, or if not, new smile radiating from him was for her only.
Since she deduced that she's going to be his first girlfriend, then it might be sufficient to call dibs that she made him make that feature first.
She wanted to reason out that she doesn't want to see the rest of the festival yet, because she was tired, but she did want to. But that option seemed to be charting down from the endless list of she wanted to do today. Remaining still was becoming a pleasant idea.
"Why don't we just stay here?"
He observed that her knowing eyes now were at their sharpest as she looked at him. The pair shone as if they were always new, everytime.
THE END
A/N: Okay. First of all, I think Yuuki needed to have a little level-up to do with his badassery to be paired with Yoshino, the BAMF of all members of Yamayurikai (at par with Eriko). He was an established character already (I think that's what I remembered reading from a review about OSMM while back, though I haven't read it), unlike Yumi who needed to grow from her timidness and insecurities before being such a badass character that she was at the end of MSGM.
Two badass characters should have some badass thought-pathways. That's also why I wrote too long sentences, because they never seemed to stop thinking. Sorry for that.
So, here lies my work, at your disposal for judgment and ridicule (if you don't like it at all).
Thank you for reading! Please review, so that I'll know your thoughts. Guest reviewers are welcome!