A Beautiful Mess Chapter 3: Jingle, a hamtaro fanfic

Thanks for all the reviews so far! I don't intend for this story to go on for a long time. It'll probably be only one chapter after this, and then I have a different idea I'd like to get started on! But first, a few thanks:

RubyxSapphire: Why thank you, and yes, I feel bad for Bijou myself, even though I know what is supposed to happen. :D

CharginForwardBlind: I'm glad you thought I kept Bijou in character! It's a little difficult switching back and forth between perspectives each chapter, but that's the only way it works in the end. Thanks!

sandyandmaxwellfanatic: Wow, the best of all time? I don't know if I agree, but thank you so much anyway! And lucky for you here's the next update. I'm glad it didn't take as long to get out there. :3

So with no further adieu (I think that's how you spell it) here's Chapter 3!

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HAMTARO'S POV

"WHY?!" The silence was shattered by a loud cry, and I instantly whirled around. Behind me, I saw Bijou, her eyes suddenly red, tears flowing freely, and a pained expression on her face. I just sat for a few seconds, confused as to what was going on. 'I just asked if I could have some time by myself' I reasoned, but obviously something had made her really upset. I had never seen her that hurt before in my life, and I couldn't remember the last time she ever yelled at me. I began to try to apologize (for what exactly, I wasn't sure), but she interrupted before I could make a sound, and I quickly snapped my mouth shut.

"How can you be so dense?" she asked, her voice cracking as she spoke. Her eyebrows were raised in heart ache and confusion for just a moment, and then they snapped back down, showing her frustration and anger. "Do you know how long I spent getting dressed up, just for you?!" It took until just then for me to notice.

The light from the setting sun reflected off of sequins on her hair ribbons so that the dark blue was accented with pink and orange highlights, and from that angle, the sash she was wearing almost made it look like she had blue angel wings. The blue in her eyes, which I realized I had never really paid attention to, matched her ribbons perfectly, and the dark colors made her fur seem more white and pure. Her paws were balled in aggravated fists, but somehow they still looked soft to me. She was...beautiful.

She must have noticed me looking closely at her because she turned her head sharply, looking away from me. "What was I thinking!? Nothing I've ever done...has ever been enough for you to notice me!" Her voice cracked again as she spoke...or yelled...but to say that I never noticed her? Ever since a year ago, I had walked to the clubhouse with her, and she had been my closest friend ever since Oxnard had left. Stan always joked around and said that girls would say one thing and mean something completely different. I thought he had just been kidding around, but I was starting to believe him.

"Bijou..."" I said quietly, trying to keep us both calm, "of course I notice you. We play together all the time..." But apparently that wasn't the right thing to say.

"YOU ARE THE MOST IGNORANT, CLUELESS HAM I'VE EVER MET!" she screamed, causing me to cringe at the sheer volume of her voice. I could hear her accent return a bit, likely because she was so distraught at...something... Her eyes were scrunched together so tightly, I couldn't have pried them open with a crow bar, but her tears still leaked through and down her face.

"Bijou, please...tell me what you're so upset about... I-"

"How do you not understand?! Even Penelope gets it, and she's only just started using actual words!" I had never been so confused in my life. 'Have the others been keeping secrets? Maybe they meant to tell me but forgot,' I reasoned. I wasn't the smartest ham in the world (everyone knows Maxwell is), but that seemed to be the only way to explain how everyone else knew something that was obviously so important while I was still in the dark. I was going to ask, but everything I had said so far had made her more upset, so I just sat still.

"Do I have to spell it out in black and white?!" I had thought I was going to have to solve some sort of riddle, but I was relieved to know that she was finally just going to tell me what was on her mind.

"...Could you?.." I was a little afraid she was going to start yelling at me again, and I spoke softly. This was a whole side of Bijou I'd never seen before, and I wanted the fun, happy Bijou to come back again. I hoped getting to the source of the problem would make it easier to solve, and it would make her cheerful again.

She put her face in her paws and began crying, so I knew it couldn't have been easy for her to tell me. She finally opened her mouth to talk, but what she said was almost silent, and I had to strain to hear her. It didn't help that she had been doing nothing but yelling for the past few minutes. "Hamtaro...I like you..." I wondered why she had been so hesitant to say something like that. I already knew. She wouldn't have been my friend if she didn't like me. Again, I tried to speak, but was interrupted.

"And before you say that you know that because we're friends, that's not what I mean..." I could feel a headache coming on as I tried to figure it all out. Stan was right, it was like she was speaking in a different language! "I like you the way Sandy likes Maxwell...or how Pepper likes Oxnard..." My heart sped up, and I could feel my face getting warm. 'Oh...' I thought, finally understanding the situation. I was having a hard time controlling my thoughts, and my body was frozen. I stood completely still and looked at Bijou as she continued crying.

"I've liked you...ever since you sang for me...outside my window..." I wondered how I hadn't noticed in all the years we had been friends. 'Wait, everyone else knows this?!' I realized. I wanted to say something, but my voice had become useless, and the only sounds I could make were short sighs and grunts.

"Don't worry, you don't have to say anything..." she said, distracting me from my own frantic thoughts for a second. "You never have..." she said under her breath as she turned around and began running towards the clubhouse. "But..." I began, but by the time I had finally cleared my mind enough to say anything, she was far out of my speaking range. There I was, alone again with the sun almost completely below the horizon, the sky now turning a dark blue dotted with stars.

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I had never felt so guilty in all my life. I got what I had wanted, some time alone in perfect view of what was the sunset, but instead, my mind was plagued with how much I had just hurt Bijou. I wanted so desperately to be able to talk to her, to apologize and make things right, but even if I knew where she was, what in the world would I say? Did I like her the same way, or was she only a friend to me? What did love even FEEL like? Every question I answered for myself only seemed to create more questions. I was beginning to get frustrated, when the familiar sound of a guitar being played drifted to me ears. I searched around, the tune serving to calm my mind a bit. Another chord filled the air, and I looked up to see an old friend, sitting calmly on one of the lower branches of a nearby tree.

"Jingle! What are you doing here?" I asked, curious of the circumstances that had led to him hiding in that tree. I didn't notice him climb up there since I had been in the area, and that had been hours ago. I dropped my shoulders in embarrassment as I realized that he must have been there during me and Bijou's little...argument.

"My good friend Ham-burrito!" Over time, I had learned not to let Jingle's faulty memory bother me that much. If I did, I was convinced that I would have gone insane a long time ago. Still, I corrected him in the hopes that someday he'd finally get it right. I couldn't help the fact that I was an optimist.

"It's Hamtaro..." I mentioned in passing, "And it's good to see you again Jingle. It's been a while!" The last time we had spoken had been a couple months ago, around the time when Bijou and Boss had their little affair, if I remember correctly. His never-ending traveling made his visits both rare and anticipated events. My feelings were mixed between the happiness of seeing an old friend, and the lingering guilt I felt over how sad and depressed I knew Bijou must have been.

"The wind follows a winding path, but always finds its way back home," he said, calm as ever. I shook my head. His adventures hadn't changed him a bit. He strummed his guitar before speaking again, and the sad tone was carried in the wind, so it could still be heard as he continued. "A troubled mind makes a troubled life, and darkens a ham-ham's sight. Your thoughts are heavy now, but some friendly advice makes them light. Explain to me your strife, my hamigo."

More rhymes, and more metaphors I couldn't really understand, but I assumed the idea of what he was saying was that I should tell him what was bothering me, and that he could help. He must have already known, since he was in that tree all along, but I explained the story to him anyway, including as much detail as possible. Maybe someone like Jingle who had been all over the world knew something about situations like this.

"A wanderer, as I am, knows little of love, save for what Nature deems him worthy to observe on his travels." So he couldn't help me is what he was saying... "Point your eyes to the skies, and the answer will become clear." I was relieved that at least he hadn't coded that last sentence, and I dropped my head back so my face pointed toward the night sky, now completely dark. The stars really were beautiful, and the moon was almost full, sitting high in the dark blue blanket of night. I spotted the big dipper, and Orion, which I had always been my favorite constellation. It was impressive to see so many stars, being only a short ways from the city, but I failed to see how that had anything to do with love.

"Think back and remember. Once, I said that love is like the sky and the clouds." I got a little frustrated. 'Yeah, and I still have no idea what that's supposed to mean!' All he was succeeding in doing was making me more depressed as I remembered the day Oxnard had left to live with Pepper. I was so happy for them when they had gotten married, but I missed him more and more as the days rolled by, waiting for them to grace us with a visit again. "Love goes by many names, but Nature knows them all," he continued, apparently lost in his own world of melody and rhyme again. "And today she's enlightened our minds with love like the day and the night."

'...What?' was the only thing I could think to a statement like that. The day and night? I got up and began to walk away, sure that nothing Jingle was going to say would help me with my problems right now. "Thanks Jingle, I'll figure it out on my own..." I heard him jump down from the tree and put a paw on my shoulder. "The sky and the clouds; where there is sky, there are clouds, and where there is day there is night" he sang while playing his guitar, and at the point something clicked for me, if only just a bit. 'Maybe there's something to what he's saying' I reasoned.

"Together there is harmony, but a day without night, or a night without light, just would not be right." I looked up again, taking in his bit of philosophy. 'So...love is harmony between two hams?' At least, that's what I assumed he meant. Bijou and I were always such good friends, even keeping peace between most of the other ham-hams whenever there would be problems. We just had such chemistry, is that what Jingle meant?

"Day and night, each an amazing sight, but when day meets night at dawn and dusk, the most vibrant colors the two together describe." I smiled a bit, partly because, for once in my life, I was able to understand what he was trying to say. Two hamsters in love each have their own skills, abilities, talents, and experiences, but together they use their separate knowledge and wisdom to help each other to be their very best. "An orange sun and a blue night sky..." he thought out loud, "the poet's perfect match."

I looked back at Jingle, smiling ear to ear. Love was still a confusing subject to me, but I was eternally grateful that he'd found a way to be around when he was. I knew then what I wanted to say to Bijou to make both of us happy. "Jingle, I can't thank you enough for helping me out!" I said quickly, turning to head to Bijou's house. It was late, so I figured she had already headed back there. "Good luck...Hamtaro..." I heard, just barely, and I stopped in shock. When I turned around, however, Jingle had disappeared without a trace, only the padded down grass where I had been sitting to watch the sun earlier leaving any indication someone had been there at all.

I brushed it off, keeping focused as I had some business to attend to. I ran on all fours into the darkness, making a straight sprint to the old, familiar mansion where I had first met the french hamster, my night.

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Wonderful! Only one more chapter to go after this, and it probably won't be that long, so just hold out a bit more. :D

Jingle is such fun to write for. It was hard, don't get me wrong, but rhyming, alliteration, and all that good stuff are pretty much what make Jingle one of my favorite characters ever. (The guitar is pretty awesome too.) After this story is through, I have another idea for a story, so go to my profile to read more about it. Should be a good time.

You know, I can feel for Hamtaro, because I'm very similar. I'm carefree, happy, and adventurous, and when it comes to love, I'm pretty clueless... Seriously, I need people to tell me, "Hey, that girl's been hitting on you," because I just assume that people are being friendly. Needless to say, I'm still single. At least it made it easy to write as Hamtaro though, knowing how to keep him as in character as possible. (Again, not all that in character considering he left Laura and is kinda likin' Bijou now, but it's a fanfic!)