Crybaby!
...Epilogue…
If you need a shoulder, mine is here, and I love you, and no one can tell you what to do, and roses and diamonds could never take the place of your face.
To Her With Love – Kara's Flowers
Rain hit the pavement in heavy sheets, drenching the world in runny grey and silver. Trees glistened and the streets were slick with water, cars making slight sighs as they hit the brakes at stoplights.
Mori moved quickly, darting within the crowd, one hand poised on the top of his bag, the other holding the collar of his jacket so the scarf round his neck would remain intact. The rain hit him with an icy sting and he panted, breath illuminated in the streetlights as he went about his way.
If he hadn't paused under the awning of a building to catch his breath, he never would have seen her. If he hadn't been late to class at all he never would have...he doesn't want to think about that.
She was still short, her brown bob had grown out into something a bit messy with the rain, just touching her shoulders. She didn't wear the hair ribbons, like she had all the time he'd known her, but at the same time she looked so little; like a girl dressed up to be a lady, wearing her mother's clothes. She was wearing a brown muffler and a navy pea coat, hands encasing a pale umbrella, and a flowered skirt peeked out from under her trench, her wrists adorned with the cashmere hems of her shirt, the color of white cream. He didn't recognize her at first, but only noted her pretty face as he leaned against a metal column underneath the fluttering canopy, still panting. But then, all of a sudden he caught her staring at him from beside the shop's door.
"Takashi-kun?" Her voice was still high, but Mori was still shocked as he looked over to where she stood. He hadn't been called Takashi in a very long while…just like high school, Mori seemed to stick more than his actual name.
"Ah…" He said, watching as she blinked, before her face melted into a grin he hadn't remembered as well as he probably should have. It stirred something in him, seeing her face light up like that.
"Oh gosh, I hope you haven't forgotten me! Hoshiko Yuzumari, from high school?" He just stared. How could he forget? He almost smiled…where were all the tears? But she stole the words right out from under him, stepping up despite the funny looks of passersby, too excited, no, too delighted to see him.
He hadn't seen anybody delighted to see him in a while; he didn't have so much time to visit home or Mitsukuni anymore with law school.
"I can't believe it! It's you! I'm so glad to see you looking well!" She started again, Mori blinking at her in the dim light. She looked beautiful, her whole face glowing and Mori just shook his head slightly, a bit of water trailing down his temple. Immediately her face took on alarm. Where were his words? They always seemed to hide, shrinking back into his mouth.
She knew, he understood, that he was happy to see her too. Relieved, a better word for it.
"Oh no, you're soaked to the bone!" She cried, taking a step closer to him her understatement beginning to sink in like the actual coldness seeping into his skin, the wind fanning her skirt as she moved and Mori felt his breath catch. She smelled like wet lilies, the kind that floated in the pond at home. She moved closer, "Are you in a hurry? You can come to my apartment and dry off, I'll give you an umbrella if you'd like! The idea of you walking around in this downpour makes me nervous! You could get sick!"
He knows what he wants.
Mori looked at the eager face he hadn't seen in so long and the umbrella in her hand, ready to be accepted. Nostalgia bit at the insides of him, gnawed at his stomach and his heart. He wanted to go with her, back to her apartment; he wanted to dry off and see the inside of her world and drink tea. He wanted to forget about class just once, and remember her, even if the memories were awkward.
He hadn't realized how much he missed everything until right then, when he decided quite firmly he needed a short break from all the trouble of being grown up.
Mori reached out and took the umbrella gently from her fingertips.
"I'll hold it." He said softly and Hoshiko beamed, stepping under the dry spot as he opened it, her body nearing his tall one.
"It's so good to see you Takashi-kun! So good to see you without crying at least! I really was something else in high school, ne? A real crybaby!" She chirped, and he could hear the genuine happiness drip off of her like rain drops on his coat. She looked up at him, and this time, just as she said, she isn't crying. She is grinning. She's different; she's lighter. He can read it on her face and in her actions.
"Thank you." She continues, gesturing to the umbrella. But it's more than that; it's thank you for all the times she couldn't say it. It makes him feel warm. It spreads down to his fingers and through his heart and all over.
Warm. She makes him feel warm all over him now. No more cold, just…comfort. Together there is something he couldn't see before. Something he couldn't feel over the roar of painful waves. Maybe this is alright for both of them this time. He wonders if she's always been that way and he just never noticed.
He smiles back in his own quiet way. The waters are all calmer now.
Yes. Definitely good for the both of them this time.
"It's good to see you too."
He never expected for tea to turn into a conversation.
Or more just her talking to him on and on and on. She fills the silence of her apartment with words over and over, spilling them out across the table between them and seeping into his brain till it is as soaked as he is. The towel she's given him is draped across his neck and he is smiling at her as she goes, twittering and nervously moving her hands like fluttering birds, as self-concious as someone thrust before a crowd, but it is only him.
He has never seen someone try so hard as she does; she tries so hard to smile, and he sees the faintest traces of the past that he knows she's tried desperately not to forget, but to move on from.
Her Sister is having a baby.
She looks sad while she says this; traces the rim of her tea cup.
"I'm not the baby anymore…it's so strange…" He can relate in the most opposite of ways.
Satoshi has a girlfriend, but more importantly all the time spent reveling over Takashi is now over Nana-chan, and even Chika can't fight it. Takashi knows he will always hold his place, but its hard to really watch his brother grow up from this perspective.
His other news is menial to himself, but she drinks it up like sugared milk. Sometimes he forgets how often she wasn't at the host club, unlike the swarms of her friends if he remembers correctly, which he almost always does. Tamaki and Haruhi are still bickering about getting married. She looks startled at this and he realizes he may have said something uncouth, but then she begins to laugh.
"I always had my suspicions!" She says, still giggling, "I think I just didn't want to admit it! She certainly was a beautiful boy…"
Kyoya claims he will marry eventually. His face has littered newspapers on and off with his prospective wife, a very serious looking woman named Mayuri. Mori can't help but find it fitting her name means 'benefit'. The Twins well, even Mori doesn't know that. They are everywhere these days, and by everywhere he means causing panic in the fashion industry as two of the most high strung mischief makers in the world. Apparently by 'taking it all by storm' they meant burning villages and destroying crops as far as stealing success. They've become the center of attention, as they always should be.
And Mitsukuni is wherever he wants to be, and that happens to be attending school overseas.
With time for cooking school that is, but who is Takashi to judge.
And when he asks about her all she can do is smile.
"I'm just getting by."
And he knows it's honest, and he knows it's the truth because at the moment he's living it.
Conversations turn to plans for the future; he wants to be in the dojo as much as he can when he's older, but for now he plans on strengthening business as the first son. She has no plans. She floats in and out of careers and classes and events and people; she has the money to be content forever.
"Maybe I'll just help you this time!" She says in jest.
He shouldn't be able to visualize it so clearly, but he does.
Plans turn into schedules, and somehow schedules turn into coffee when their free, which turns into dinner.
He never expected dinner.
They talk about literature and politics and art; they talk about gardening, they talk about animals (she always wanted one but never had the courage to ask). She never had the courage to ask for much of anything apparently.
He invites her to an intern Christmas party; he notes how pretty the color spiceberry is against her hair.
He can justify it; he has no one else to take with him and he doesn't want her in that apartment all by herself. He has read somewhere that the holidays are some of the most depressing times of the year. He doesn't want her to be depressed, and the only way he can make sure she isn't is if she's with him.
She blushes like a schoolgirl as he quietly introduces her to colleagues and acquaintances and his favorite professor. She's glued to his side, but he doesn't really mind. It's been a while since he's had someone depend on him other than himself. It fills a very big void.
He knows she needs someone to depend on.
She invites him to a New Years occasion (the Western version…apparently she has a friend from New York).
He is impressed; she is an excellent dancer, and he cannot still his heart when his larger hand cradles her own, swaying. She is only 'just tipsy' when she leans up to give him a hesitant kiss on the cheek at midnight, a tradition he's never heard of. They clap, champagne glasses clink together and she flushes pink. Fireworks light up the sky as she shivers in her cocktail dress on the balcony; his suit jacket drowns her and he smiles at the sight of her pulling the long arms onto her own, hands swimming in the folds she's pushing up to her elbows. For a moment she flickers to the smallish form of Haruhi, but the image isn't bitter or anything, but rather, he feels just a little tingling sensation in the back of his head that maybe he has something close to that.
There is nothing wrong with keeping an old friend warm, after all.
He walks her all the way to her door that night, just in case someone tries to take advantage of her. She's naive and too sweet, and it would be easy. He keeps his hand on her shoulder, wound round her, just to tell them to stay out of their way. He doesn't want her to have any trouble tonight.
He doesn't realize it at all when her hand lingers on his arm when she points something out in a store, when her apartment mysteriously contains foods he prefers, coffee brands he enjoys, magazines he would at some point read, and movies he's had interest in.
Slowly, so slowly he doesn't detect it, she is creeping into his life. Piece by piece, footsteps following each other become a pair of boot tracks in the snow, side by side through the cold and wet of February, and slower still into spring and finally the summer heat that bakes him and strands him on the streets of another steaming city, far, far away from her.
He had to leave for longer than usual for a law conference, but still he promised her (and these promises both confuse and thrill him) that he'll be back before her birthday. He doesn't have any clue what to buy her, because every article of clothing appears far too mature to her tiny frame, and none of it is soft enough to make her look as gentle and compassionate as she should, as she always has been. Books she has too many of already; boutiques full of hats and jewelry too cold and dead and lifeless compared to her pretty little face in his head.
She has somehow taken over more than just a back shelf, more than just a corner of his mind. Not so suddenly he is thinking about her in the everyday situation; his world begins to shift, and at an aching pace begins to revolve around her smiles and her giggles and the way she still makes him feel so warm and wanted and invited. Meetings, classes, Hoshiko. Reply to a letter, write a report, visit Hoshiko. Pick up cat food for the kitten he bought her for when he has to be out of town, so she won't be lonely. Books she'd like leap into his hand, trinkets from his travels, sweet things Mitsukuni sends in the mail. More band aids: she still hasn't gotten used to cooking for herself. He buys the cute kind; pink hello kitty with flowers and hearts and bows. She puts them on with a smile and a wince and a sheepish laugh when she realizes she's stuck the sides together upon opening it and the adhesive is weak, and in the end he always carefully applies the small bandages for her with thoughtful expression and a tenderness he's never shown with any girl before. Even with Mitsukuni and Haruhi he was blunt and maybe a little rough, because he knew both could take it, and because he'd never been especially careful with his large hands.
But she, she is different, but he doesn't realize. He doesn't realize he treats her skin like porcelain; something so fragile it may shatter if he doesn't pay enough attention.
She throws herself at him in the cute way of one who adores another; one who wants nothing more than to simply love.
He never expected though, in his wildest imaginations, that he would be giving something back at all. He just justifies his care as only that - care for someone who is smaller than himself and clumsy.
His hand absently taps the armrest of the plane, nervously checking his watch for the time again. He's going to be late. He's meeting her at the restaurant after he gets off of the plane for her birthday; her favorite place. His last images of her play out across his mind: she was so short in the crowd of the airport as he made his way down the gate towards his conservative luxury jet. Her sweater is only one size too big and she's waving at him with a smile on her face as he leaves. But he can't smile back.
He doesn't realize that leaving her hurts him now. He doesn't realize he's missing her now.
Its been two weeks since he's seen her last. Its been almost a year since they met that rainy monday afternoon, and he can barely survive two weeks. He wonders how he survived the two years prior to that rainy monday. He wonders how many rainy mondays he's had since then with her, he wonders how many times he's gotten wet holding the umbrella that's obviously big enough for two.
When they finally reach the terminal he can't help but ignore baggage claim; one of his attendants will get it for him. He makes his way to the garage, ignoring the valet, but claiming his keys. He's an hour and twenty minutes late by the time his sleek silver corvette arrives at the restaurant and he can see her from the darkness of the window. She is smiling sadly at the empty space across from her and stands up, her small purse clutched in her hand. The concierge brings her jacket and she puts it on. He's almost frozen to his seat, but then he shakes himself to life. He's out of the car in an instant, slamming the door behind him, keys still in the ignition. All he can think about is the birthdays before this she's spent alone.
He's always been a person to beat himself up, and right now he might as well have an lead pipe wailing on his self esteem. He feels terrible.
She's just stepping out onto the pavement, heels clicking, when he reaches her.
"Thank you…" she says kindly to the valet as he begins to escort her towards her own car, but she is stopped by his voice.
"Hoshiko." He says strongly and she looks over her shoulder before locking eyes with him.
"Takashi-kun!" She starts, going towards him, looking worried. "Takashi, you look so pale, are you alright?" His feet move on their own. He was so worried. So worried that she would have been crying, that she would be heartbroken, that she would feel stupid sitting by herself. He was so worried some punk would try to put a move on her, that someone would hassle her, add to their tip, take extra off of her credit card when she paid the bill.
He was so worried that she would be in a million little pieces.
So worried; for two weeks (and an hour and twenty minutes) he couldn't concentrate at all, he was so worried she'd be alone. That she'd be as lonely as he had been.
She stops walking as he crosses the distance between them until suddenly, he puts his hands on her face, just to be sure she's all there, that she's intact and safe and smiling. He feels her fluttering heart as she sucks in a breath and looks up at him.
"Takashi…?" Her voice is cut off as he crushes her into a hug.
"Gomen." He mutters and she just blinks at the feel of his clothing, arms hanging limply in the air. He squeezes her tighter, "Gomen…I should have called you. I won't let it happen again. You won't ever wait alone again."
Hoshiko doesn't know what to say or what to do. She just hugs him back.
"I…I missed you a lot." She whispers as he slowly moves the hand pressed against the back of her head, "I…I wanted you to come home sooner." Her fingers tangle into his jacket, the honesty and her embarrassment endearing.
"I wanted to be with you. I was very lonely." He replies and she pulls back and stares into his eyes.
"Really?"
There, in front of the bustling street he stoops down and kisses her softly. It's hesitant and shy, but she returns it faithfully.
"Ah." He answers against her lips.
She curls her arms around his neck, up on her tiptoes to compensate the distance. He marvels at how two people can fit together so well, even though he is sort of a tall problem for her. He realizes it just then that he's loved her for a while. She's loved him since the beginning, but finally the two paths have met. She starts to cry a little, but accepts the mopping of her face by his handkerchief and then she laughs and he smiles.
She's always been such a crybaby at heart, but he doesn't mind very much. He'll always be there to wipe up her tears and brush off her clothes. He never wants her to do anything but shine.
After all, to him, she is far brighter than any stars in the sky.