Summary: Kanata had already learned not to expect. Five years of Miyu's absence — how could this year be any different? "Hey, long time no see, Kanata." —Actually, it was wildly different.

Disclaimer: I don't own Daa! Daa! Daa! Nor any anime/manga for that matter. If there's an anime you want to own, what would it be? Mine would be Naruto. Think of all the money Kishi-sensei is making.* loljk.

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falling's not the problem, when i'm falling in peace
(Title just changed)

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"Dear Ba-Ka-nata ;p,

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Happy, happy birthday! And I wish you a Merry Christmas, though I know you don't actually celebrate Christmas, unless… you got a girlfriend while I'm not around?! : I totally can't imagine you going on dates and stuff, lol.

How have you been, my friend? I hope you're doing grand. (My English is getting better, right? Someone told me to try to write this letter in English. My high school's curriculum is intense—I wonder how I even managed to get in— so I need practice every chance I get! In Math too, but you wouldn't want these papers full of formulas, right? Though you're really good at Math. Hey Kanata~, swap brains with me.)

So… I've been studying a lot— I've never studied so much in my life! Sometimes, I want to get away from it all, flip my desk during class, set my books to fire, throw them down the window, you get the idea. And all my friends are such nerds too! Even when we hangout, they talk all academic suddenly. Though other people watching might not guess they're talking about science and math all the time (lol, I exaggerate ;p), since they all look so fashionable and amazing, and not so nerdy at all.

It's been eight months, hasn't it? I've made lots of friends... People here are nice, not so different from our friends there in Heiomachi! (But I miss Heiomachi too. I'm sorry I can't be there now. I want to see everybody!) My best friend here used to be a yankee. But she's a good girl now (and she's surprisingly smart). She told me it was love that changed her. And of all people, she fell in love with a police officer. Hair blonde hair, with cute pink highlights, is the only thing left from her rebel days. I wonder if highlights would also suit me. What do you think, Kanata?

My two other closest friends are both guys. One's the class rep our who showed me around on my first day in school. He and his best friend became my first friends, since I was constantly in their care. He's so much like you (but with darker hair and darker eyes, and he acted cool all the time). At first, I was really surprised at how famous he is around here. He'd walk the streets and people would actually ask him to if he wanted to model. (I think, if you're here, the talent scouts would've been all over you too!) o_o He's always told me that he wanted to be a DJ, but I think he's tried modeling a couple of times before. His best friend, my other friend, showed me the magazines they've appeared on. His best friend's just as famous. (Now that I think about it, I don't suit hanging out with them! Bye-bye~ my self-confidence. ) But before I knew it, the four of us—me, my best friend, class rep, and his best friend—are eating lunch on the rooftop every day.

Are you still in the student council this year too? I've joined the volleyball and astronomy club, which I sometimes regret. Maybe I should've gotten a part-time job instead of the volleyball club. My friend works in a music store and he asked me to join him. I had to turn him down, sadly. I don't think I can juggle school, two clubs, and work. If it were you, I think you'd manage without breaking a sweat."

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Kanata paused from the letter he was reading out loud, and looked at Miyu. "See? You never mentioned his name. Nor your friends'. Though I know from the next letters that the girl's name is Ran."

There were still a couple of hours left to Christmas. Miyu and Kanata were in his room, going through the first and oldest in the box containing all of Miyu's letters. Kanata was idly sitting on his bed, his back propped against the wall. On the edge of the bed was Miyu, mutely picking out patterns on the ceiling while listening closely to Kanata's reading.

When she didn't reply, he returned to the letter in his hands, this time reading wordlessly. The room was silent except for his occasional mutterings: "Hmm... Blah blah blah… I saw my singer-crush walking along the street! Blah blah… Mom took in a cat that sometimes barks like a dog (creepy!) so we named it Wanya. Dad bought it a cute bow-tie shaped collar… blah…

blah… blah… mmm…

Love from,

Miyu."

When he finished, Kanata sighed, but the ghost of a smile was playing on his lips. It was utterly ridiculous, not to mention childish, but reading those last parts — Love from, Miyu — made him feel a little giddy. These letters were his treasures, his only connection to her for the past years, but at the same time they remained his constant source of heartbreak and envy. This time however, those petty troubles of his did not matter, because Miyu was here, in the flesh, sitting beside him, and it made him the happiest he'd been in years.

Focusing on the situation at hand, he began to muse out loud. "I think if this were in Japanese, you would've been forced to write your boyfriend's name somehow." Actually, Miyu also never mentioned the existence of a boyfriend-person in her letter. It was an unsolicited piece of information he got from her mother when she apologized for Miyu's absence that year: "Sorry, Miyu couldn't be here right now, she's spending Christmas with her boyfriend."

"Ex-boyfriend, Kanata," she corrected. Unfortunately, her mood had turned sour while he was reading loudly to himself. "Also, he wasn't even my boyfriend yet at that time. My mother was only making assumptions, though she turned out right eventually. You know, back then, I thought, he was too much like you. And why should I settle for someone who only looks like you, acts like you, but isn't you?"

She paused. Her emotions were threatening to spill over. She took a deep breath, and prepared to steel herself for the rest of her story. "Actually, it was Ran he liked first, but Ran was taken away while he was dragging his feet around, pretending to act all cool and stuff." She let out a shaky laugh. "Then one day, he told me liked me, I don't know how he came up with that. All that time we hang out, I thought we were only doing it as friends. But as soon as he realized he liked me, he was pretty much relentless in pursuing me. I think he didn't want what happened with Ran to happen with me too. And with that, his hard-work, his cunning – he came up with all sorts of excuse just to be together, even really stupid ones—he won me over eventually, after more than a year."

Miyu's voice had turned monotonous through the course of her narrative. Emotions had also left her eyes, Kanata saw, and she was back at some supposedly happy memory that now made her miserable.

Wanting to alleviate a little of her bitterness, Kanata waved the sheets of paper before her face. If only he could fan her dark thoughts away. "Was that your model ex-boyfriend who told you to do this in English?"

"Yup, that's him." Miyu snatched the mail from him and likewise briefly skimmed through her own writing. "And in the other letters, I never mentioned his name?"

Their correspondence for the next years were stacked neatly on the bed beside Kanata's outstretched leg. Even without checking, he knew for sure her boyfriend's name never appeared on those papers. After all, he re-read each of them countless of times these last six years and he'd been particularly on the lookout for mentions of this class rep-cum-model-cum-DJ-wannabe friend of hers that often appeared in her letters.

"After I replied to your letter in my spectacular English," Kanata said teasingly gloating, "it became our sort of tradition, right? And you conveniently use 'he', 'she', 'they' or 'my friends' for everyone. Geez Miyu. Six years, and I'd have thought you'd learn about proper nouns."

She chuckled at her own slip-up and promptly collapsed on his bed. "Sorry Ba-Ka-nata. I never realized, sorry!" It was becoming increasingly funny how she'd managed to do that when he made up big proportions of her mails.

Kanata too let his legs slide from the bed to the floor so he's lying on his back. They were side by side, and were both smiling faintly at the ceiling.

He spoke again, recalling what happened a year after she first wrote him. "So in the end, you quit volleyball club to take that part-time job, huh?"

It took a long time for Miyu to reply, and when she did, her tone was again wistful. "Yeah, I didn't renew my membership for volleyball in my second year. And a year after that, we both quit the music store to attend cram school together." They aimed for the same university, though for different programs, and they both passed.

Later on, he asked her to move in with him to which she happily complied. But that wasn't in any letter for it only happened this year.

And early-on in their cohabitation, they both realized their hearts weren't ready for forever with each other.

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The sad turn of their conversation was interrupted by a late night phone call to Kanata's mobile.

While he was on the phone, chatting animatedly with whoever is on the other line—Miyu suspected it was a guy, judging by the vulgar words he occasionally boldly used (clearly it wasn't someone he was keen to impress romantically) —Miyu left. The rest of her story could wait, she thought. And there was something more pressing she had to do today.

In the meantime, she went back to her own room to retrieve a small package from her suitcase. It was a parcel almost the same size as Kanata's letter box. The thought of his letter box made her chuckle—Kanata's such a girl; this will be perfect for him.

After adding her finishing touches to the package, she returned at once to his room, and found it still brightly lit. Foregoing knocking altogether, she walked confidently inside. She saw Kanata already lying supine on his bed. An arm was slung across his face which covered his eyes. To her, he looked peacefully asleep.

But there was something she had to do today, no matter what. She'd already wasted the rest of the day recovering from her terrible hangover, so now she was left with little time to accomplish this very important deed. She resolved to wake him up; softly, she called out to him. "Kanata."

"Kanata, wake up."

Unknown to Miyu, Kanata was still wide awake, and was only resting his eyes when she came in. He thought it was obvious he wasn't sleeping yet—in fact, he expected Miyu to start chatting him up—but Miyu seemed not to notice. And when she uttered her name, to him, it sounded so lovely, he forgot to respond. In the end, he decided to continue feigning sleep, in the hopes of getting her to say his name one more time.

And just he relaxed his body to look more convincingly asleep, he felt his bed dip as she sat down on its edge. "Kanata," he heard her say, "you're forgetting something. Wake up."

Even when he didn't move or respond, Miyu continued to talk to him, "I have something to give you, Kanata. Wake up."

"Kanata, Kanata, hey, Kanata."

"Kanata, wake up! It's not even midnight yet!"

Becoming slowly agitated, she took hold of his arm, the one on his side, and shook it. "Ba. Ka. Na. Ta. I have to do this today. Wake up, please?" Damn, Kanata! He sleeps like a log!

Inwardly, Kanata was doing his best to hold his laughter. He knew it was extremely for him to be pushing Miyu's buttons. In fact, he was already starting to fear for his life, and he tried his best to harden his stomach muscles in case she punches him there—but a flustered-sounding, begging Miyu is just so entertaining! He wanted to see just how far she'd go. (He thinks he must be a masochist and a sadist at the same time.)

"Kanata?"

"Kanata."

"Saionji Kanata."

"Fuck you, Kanata."

With that, Kanata felt Miyu rise from the bed. Straining his ears, he heard her put something down gently on his bedside table.

Kanata started panicking. He couldn't see Miyu. He didn't know where she went if she's still in the room. Hell, getting punched was better than this…

And that was then that he felt it—a warm, tickling sensation on his ear. He itched to move swat away the sudden foreign feeling, but he caught himself when he heard Miyu speak. Her voice was a soft, beautiful whisper, carried by her warm breath on his ear.

It scared him to move and open his eyes only to find out that this was actually a dream he'd woken up from. Breathing slow, calming breaths, he waited for minutes to pass before getting up.

The light was blinding his unadjusted eyes. Miyu had already left.

When his eyes had grown accustomed to the light again, he could only stare at the door she quietly closed after she stepped out. Minutes had already passed, but her presence in his room could still be strongly felt. For one, the gift box she brought him sat conspicuously on his bedside table. It was the flaming orange in color with dark, little silhouettes of pumpkins printed on it. It looked better suited for Halloween than a birthday or Christmas. But the thought that she remembered how pumpkins are his favorite made him feel all warm inside. He couldn't wait to open the box and see what more pumpkin-related things she got him.

Second, and the more powerful manifestation—his ear felt tingly, as tingly and giddy as he felt inside, from when she whispered, "Happy birthday, Ba-Kanata," in his ear.

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AN: * from the disclaimer above—I also wouldn't mind owning One Piece, but I haven't gotten around to reading it. :( Maybe someday I'd experience the genius of Oda-sensei's manga.

And the title has officially changed! falling's not the problem, when i'm falling in peace is a line from a song by Florence + the Machine.

So which anime/manga did Miyu's ex-boyfriend and friends come from? : I kept a little of their backstory intact, though the girl bestfriend is actually three people merged into one. Can you guess?

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, favorite-d, followed so far. I love you so fvckn much! Humor me a bit and review this one too. And tell me honestly all the stuff you hate about this fic. And the stuff you like too. And stuff.

See you next chapter?