I woke up on Thursday and drew open my blinds, and never had I thought the sunshine could feel so sweet on my face. I squinted my eyes open and, though I couldn't see much of anything without my glasses on, all the blurred colors outside of my bedroom window seemed especially vivid today, mixing into a beautiful collage of life before my unfocused eyes.
I hummed a nameless tune as I prepared for school, dressing and going down to make my two lunches after eating the breakfast Mom had left for me. Idly, I wondered what Haruka was doing at the same moment, and if her day was starting any differently than usual.
XXXXXXX
My eyes snapped open, and as they focused and got used to the idea of being used again, I observed a line of light slowly traversing the side of my room. Loosing a fantastically satisfying yawn, I stretched out my cramped limbs and protesting back--a junior high girl's back should not crack like that, I growled--and stood. Suddenly, a slow smile formed on my lips. I crouched down and reached under my bed, taking out a shoebox that had within it a small totebag that had within it... my alarm clock. I watched it with malicious amusement as the second hand ticked slowly by, forty-nine... forty-eight... forty-seven. With a heady sense of power, I waited until the last second before I had programmed it to go off, and switched of the alarm. One victory for Suzushiro Haruka against the alarm clock. Sure, I had a little catching up to do, but I was determined to even the score. I wondered what it was that had awakened me so early; perhaps it was the willpower finally kicking in?
Other than that, today also felt a good deal different, somehow, as though everything in the world were intent on stirring my senses. The steaming water striking my skin, beading and trickling down through my hair and down my arms and body and legs somehow felt... exciting, almost like a tickle, but deeper, way down in my stomach and pushing at my chest. The smell of the coffee brewing was soothing, and the taste of it--down to nearly an eighth of the sweetener I used to put in it--was bracing, dark and heavy and filling me with warmth. The sound of the other tentants waking and bustling to all sides seemed somehow louder than normal, but in an interesting way, filling my mind with notions of life and energy.
Oh, that was right, I realized. Yukino was coming over today.
XXXXXXX
The day passed like a dream, but in sharp reality. I seemed to be able to pay attention in class effortlessly, and even volunteered for an answer after a few hushed moments, though I couldn't have said what brought me to it. When time came for English, I hurried gracefully out of the room and breezed into Haruka-chan's class. Miss Nakamura smiled at me, and I smiled back, and we proceeded with class. Even Haruka's face seemed brighter, which made me almost fear it was a dream, for her features never brightened during her worst subject with her rival in the room. When she energetically volunteered for a translation, too, she got it correct, which put further doubt into my mind of the reality of the situation, but the most I was willing to do about it was to... hope that I wouldn't awake.
However, awake I did, though not in my bed. I was thrust from my warm and secure morning when a splash of cold reality drenched me with the suddenness of a bucket precariously perched atop a door. I got out for lunch and started over to where Haruka-chan and I usually met, the sight of her lounging in the shade and awaiting me already sketched before my eyes. To my great surprise, I felt a tap on my shoulder in the hallway, near the door to the outside. It was one of my classmate's, a girl. I felt immediately uncomfortable when I couldn't remember her name, but she just smiled, and didn't seem to expect me to.
"Yukino-chan? Hey, I was wondering if I could ask you a question about my English paper."
"Paper?" I said, puzzled. We didn't have an--
"Yeah, the one that--oh, well, we have one in this class, didn't you know?"
I flushed slightly, realizing that we would have different assignments, and nodded. "Uhm, sure. I need to be going, but I have a few minutes." Her eyes narrowed strangely when I said this, but I didn't think anything of it, other than her perhaps harboring a tactfully unvoiced curiosity.
"Oh, good--ah, but I need to hurry, too! I forgot, my friends and I agreed to meet before we went somewhere, and if I'm not there they might leave without me. Could you just come with me for a sec? They'll wait if I can at least show up." Without waiting for an answer, she took my hand and pulled me out of the door and started walking very quickly, around the building. I tried to find my voice to protest, but it would not come. Finally, she we were on the other side of the school building, and I saw her friends. She had quite a lot of them, and I was swiftly brought over to a little ninety-degree corner of the building, where a new wing had been added a few years ago. Looking around at what must have been about twenty people, I started to have misgivings.
"So, um, your paper?" I asked tentatively.
"Oh, did I say paper? I meant questions about Fujino-sama," she said, and a dangerously dreamy look came into her eyes.
"W-what was that?" I stammered, not entirely sure at what I had heard. "I, I think I need to be going now, my friend--"
"What friend? You just keep to yourself all day," another voice called out. "Like you think you're better than us, just because you get to be with Fujino-sama for an hour a day. Isn't she stuck up?"
"What? No!" I protested, but my quiet voice wasn't nearly enough to reach all the ears.
"Look, I don't really care how much better you think you are," the first girl, the one who had brought me here, said loudly, as though speaking to all the others. "The fact of the matter is, you--undeserving as you are--get to be closer to Fujino-sama for an hour a day than we all ever get to be. You must know something about her, and as the official Fujino-sama Fan Club, we will get that information out of you." She gripped my shoulder with a fanatical gleam in her eyes.
"Well, tell us something, anything! What's her favorite color?"
"What kind of music does she like?"
"What are her hobbies?"
"What tea does she drink?"
"Does she have a boyfriend?"
"What are her measurements?"
"What color are her panties?"
The questions poured on me like a deluge, only one in ten actually audible, and absolutely none of them particularly reasonable--how on Earth was I supposed to know anything about her underwear? In my bewilderment my mind couldn't seem to organize and muster any resistance, not even just the urge to run away. Shortly after the shouting began, however, I heard the shrill, excited questions dissolving into outraged protests.
XXXXXXX
After my class ended, I hurried over toward's Yukino's, hoping to catch her before she went to our usual spot. I'd heard today that the Gardening Club's project, cultivating a selection of long-blooming flowers that would bloom soon after school began, had fulfilled their promise, and thought we could go there to enjoy our lunch period. It seemed like the kind of thing she would like. It looked like I was too late to catch her at her class, though. I knew I'd have to hope a little that she took some time to put up her stuff, but I'd been feeling lucky so far today. Just not that much, apparently. I left by way of the door closest to her class and, emerging from the silence of the empty school building, the muffled sounds of distant yelling sounded loud to my ears for all of a moment. It faded into the background buzz of outside noise immediately, but I was fairly sure I hadn't mistaken it. It had sounded like it was on the other side of the school building, where I knew there wasn't a convenient door. Setting my jaw, and promising to give Yukino a good apology for disappearing on her later, I ran over to investigate. My balance felt a little awkward in my too-tight uniform top, but I hurried as fast as felt safe.
A crowd of girls, incoherent yelling, all circled in on one sight. Chances were good that this was a fight. I furrowed my brows and waded in... ss much as a bowling ball could be said to "wade into" pins.
"Out of the way, hooligans. Don't you have any decency, any morals?" I shouted, ignoring whatever pithy comments they decided to throw back my way. When I had made my way through the crowd, which took a very short time, all told, I stopped stock-still, the last person I had expected to see locked together with another girl in there.
"Yukino?" Looking closer, I saw that she actually still had her books clutched to her chest, and our lunch dangling from one hand, and it was only the other girl that had a hold of her threateningly.
"Haruka-chan!" Yukino shouted, and in her voice was a plea so heart-wrenching to the ears of me, her friend, that I could hardly remember moving my legs. Suddenly, I was there beside her, gripping this upstart's arm with all the iron of our solid friendship and causing her to let go quite quickly. Smiling with satisfaction, I tossed her arm aside, causing her to take a few steps back herself.
"What do you think you're doing to her?" I demanded furiously, taking an imposing stance in front of Yukino.
"Nothing you need to worry about, who are you?" The girl I'd hurt said haughtily, wringing her hand and looking back to the crowd, as if for support.
"I'm Suzushiro Haruka, and that's all you need to know." To my surprise, as I didn't know her face, her eyes brightened with recognition.
"Suzushiro Haruka, the girl that Fujino-sama bested to get first place in the primary school finals a year ago?" This was not how I wanted my name to be recognized.
"Yes, that Suzushiro Haruka," I growled. "And also the girl that's going to have you go away, now, before I make you do so."
"And what gives you the right?" She shot back. "I wasn't hurting her, we were just asking her a few questions." I raised an eyebrow at her, and turned my head around slightly, never taking my eyes off of this aggravating girl.
"Did she hurt you, Yukino?" I asked pointedly.
"N-no, not really, Haruka-chan," she said, but the tone of fearfullness in her voice was far from reassuring.
"Even so," I continued, "Would you want to remain here with them?"
"No!" She said, much more firmly.
"Well, that takes care of that, now doesn't it?" I said. "We'll be going now. Come on, Yukino." I took a few steps forward, but little miss spokesperson stepped right into my path, and drew herself up to her full height--which was surprisingly near my own. With her face as indistinct in my memory as it was, though, I thought her to be a first year, just an early-blooming one. Nonetheless, it takes more than height to stand eye-to-eye with Suzushiro Haruka. I drew myself up, chin in, back straight, chest out--ignoring the tension this put on my chest and shirt and the ominous, barely audible sound of creaking seams.
"I said we're going," I barked into her face. She flinched, but recovered.
"And I said we had a few questions for that girl," she countered.
"I don't care," I said bluntly. I took a step forward, bumping into her and having her take half a step back. She stood again, however, and seemed to brace herself. A challenge, then! I marched forward, this time not stopping after contact, and she stumbled after a few steps. We were at the edge of the group of girls, now, and they parted to allow our passage. Refusing to step aside, she tripped. At this point I was willing to stop, and even put out a reluctant hand to try and catch her. However, the little tart did something else instead.
XXXXXXX
I followed Haruka-chan carefully as she led the way out, right through that girl that had had me by the shoulder. The sun shone gold on her hair, and she made such an imposing figure that I saw her again as the prince from my childhood. It had been a while since I'd had that particular vision of her, but it came again now, as I sat on the back of her white horse, riding from the cursed castle as she took her sword of the finest steel and parted the tides of monsters that had threatened me.
Rrrrrrrrrrip!
I had no idea what the sound was, at first. Haruka had stopped, and I saw that the girl she had been pushing was fallen on the ground. A white rag was settling around her, and she looked at it, bemused. I looked back at Haruka-chan, wondering what was going on, and saw that I could see a good deal more of her lower back than I ought to be able, and her upper arms as well. Her hand was outstretched, as though to catch the fallen girl, and even after she had fallen, Haruka-chan was still frozen like that.
"Yaaahhh!" A cry of purest humiliation tore out from Haruka-chan's throat, and she crouched on the ground, hands enfolding her chest. As though scripted, laughter broke from the crowd of girls, derisive and cruel. I felt suddenly helpless, a feeling that was ultimately alien when I had Haruka-chan right beside me. Looking between her and the laughing girls, though, I began to feel another, equally alien feeling. I was lost for a moment, as though my body were having a hard time dealing with this, trying to remember how it was supposed to behave when this happened. I felt the emotion slowly, growing cold in my stomach and running hot in my veins, clenching my fists and building up in my throat. I was angry. I took a step forward, harsh, unfamiliar words forming in my mind, and then--
"Yaaaarrrrrrgh!" Haruka bounded up like a thing possessed, all thought of modesty abandoned, and ran straight into the crowd of girls. In this case, however, she didn't need to actually make contact with any of them. There was plenty of pushing and shoving, but all from one another as they ran away from her a short distance, looked at one another, and decided that even more distance from this furious, crazy, half-naked second-year would be the most prudent course of action. The girl who remained on the ground looked up, with actual sincere regret in her eyes.
"I-I'm sorry, Suzushiro-san!" She yelped. Sincere regret apparently didn't amount to much, compared to the realization that she was going to need as much a head-start as she could manage, and she just through down the tatters of Haruka-chan's uniform and ran off. I walked over to Haruka-chan, and she turned quickly in my direction. I saw her visibly relax when she saw it was me, however, and wrapped me up in a hug.
"At least you're okay. God, that was embarrassing!" Gradually, as the initial thought of my safety slipped into the subsequent of what had just happened, she belatedly realized where she was, in what state, and who she was hugging. My cheek and the sides of my lips and nose were pressed into the soft rise of Haruka's breast, just above where her bra ended, and it felt like the heat of her chest, heaving with exertion and adrenaline, leaked into me and set my cheeks afire.
"Oh!" She let go immediately and turned around, and my face felt uncomfortably cool, even in the humid early-spring day. "Uhm, if I gave you my locker number and combination, do you think that you could go get my gym shirt?" What of her face I could see as she turned her neck around was bright as a tomato.
"Of course, Haruka-chan," I said, disguising a smile by looking down and pulling a pen and paper from my bag. I like tomatoes, I thought irreverently, then put my mind back to the importance of my task.
"Here, write it down: Locker twenty-two, combination 3-13-88." She turned around and I gave her the paper to check over. Forgetting herself--at least I thought she was, though she might just not have been that modest with a friend--she unfolded her arms to have a look at it, and I couldn't help but stare; I somehow hadn't really noticed how much Haruka-chan was changing.
"Good. Hurry back, please," she said, and she folded in on herself again.
"Alright, Haruka-chan," I answered, already walking swiftly away.
After that, we ate lunch right there behind the building. Haruka-chan wasn't quite ready to face all the other students in her gym shirt, and worried at how the story of her humiliation might have gotten around school. For my part, I didn't see it as so much humiliating as heroic--bravery under fire, as it were--but it felt like saying so would sound strange, so I just did my best to comfort her and tell her nobody would think anything of it. I never really found out whether anybody did, I recall. I didn't hear anything the rest of that day, and if Haruka-chan had been the subject of any remarks, she never told me, and I never saw it happen.
XXXXXXX
Later, when I went back to class, I said honestly enough that my uniform had ripped. When asked if I wanted to take it to the nurse to sew it up, I declined, saying truthfully that I was starting to outgrow it and needed to buy a new one. I was nervous, but refused to show it, and a survey of my classmate's didn't reveal any hidden amusement--other than in Fujino's, but that was commonplace when she had her eyes directed at me, so I didn't think anything of it. Breathing an inaudible sigh of relief, I made my way through the rest of class and walked home. Shortly after I arrived, I thought about calling Yukino. We never had agreed when she would be coming over. When I walked into the living room, however, the phone rang on its own, and it turned out she'd had the thought first.
"Did you have a time you wanted me over, Haruka-chan?" She asked after we'd exchanged greetings.
"Not any in particular," I said, trying to sound nonchalant. "Whenever is convenient for you."
"I don't have anything I need to do, would it be alright if I came over right now?"
"Ah, sure," I said, taken aback. "How long do you think it will take you to get here?"
"No more than fifteen minutes."
"Alright, I'll expect you then, see you soon."
"See you soon, Haruka-chan."
I put the phone on the reciever, and looked anxiously around the living room and kitchen. I usually cleaned it up better after I'd had a little chance to relax after school, I never expected my parents to worry about cleaning up when they came in from long shifts. Guess I'd just do it a little earlier today. I tied my hair up to keep it out of the way, and quickly ran a sink of hot water and scrubbed dishes and counters until everything looked a bit more in order. I found I couldn't remember what kind of state my room was in, and went to take a peek. Everything seemed to be in order. I had left the open shoe box and toteback on the floor, so I put those back, absent-mindedly stuffing the alarm clock back in as well.
Satisfied with everything, I nervously went back into the living room. I looked at the clock. Twenty minutes had passed, and my apprehension spiked. Had something happened? If she wasn't going to be able to make it after all, Yukino surely would have called--unless there was some sinister reason that she was unable! What if, on her way to my apartment, or even going through the complex, she had been encountered by some unsavory types? I gnawed my lip.
I should have gone and picked her up, or convinced her to come over after school. What had I been thinking!?
No, I told myself. No, that wouldn't help anybody. Yukino was obviously in trouble and I didn't need to be standing her e berating myself for what I should have done, I needed to go help her! I brought my hands together firmly, having mademy decision, and ran to the front door. The door flew open with the strength of my hand and bounced noisily from the doorstop, slowly edging back into place and gently tapping my heel, as though chiding me for silliness. Yukino stood in front of me, eyes wide and leaning slightly back, as though she still might expect me to suddenly run forward and bowl her over. She was in a dress, I noticed. A sunny yellow--no, not so bright; a rich, buttery and soft color, a light garment to offset the stickiness in the air. The color sat oddly against her eyes, though it provided a nice complement to her hair; she looked good. I was staring, so I stopped.
"Oh! Ah, Yukino. Welcome." I sounded stiff and knew it and knew that she was taken aback by it. I also knew that I suddenly was feeling stiff and that's why I sounded like that, and couldn't seem to make myself relax. It was just Yukino, I couldn't say why I was feeling like that. Although, it likely had something to do with almost running over her in a mad dash to save her; it would be very nearly as awkward to explain that as to not, and not required less effort.
"Thanks for having me, Haruka-chan. My parent's wanted me to thank you for your care this evening," she said, darting her eyes to the sides, and then looking down. Great, now she was feeling uncomfortable too; I knew that default reliance on formality like the back of my hand.
"Oh, Haruka-chan, your hands," Yukino said suddenly. Puzzled, I brought them up. "They're so red, did you get something on them?" I almost, but not quite, laughed. My hands were a little pink--I didn't see red--and a little wrinkled besides, from quickly cleaning the kitchen with a sink of quite hot, soapy water.
"Nothing but water, I washed dishes after school," I explained.
"Oh, I see. You're house does look very nice, Haruka-chan. Your parents must be very orderly people."
"Most of the time, yes," I agreed, not wanting to get picky about the matter. "Can I take you to my room?" I asked.
"Please, I've never been to Haruka-chan's room."
With her casual statement, I became terribly, acutely aware of that. My father's words about the importance of first impressions surfaced in mind, and I suddenly began worrying about everything in there. That is, I knew it was clean, but what of everything else, what kind of girl did my worldly possessions betray me to be? It was with no small amount of trepidation, then, that I opened my bedroom door again, and started taking in the sight as if it was the first time I'd ever laid eyes on it, much the same as Yukino was doing.
It was pretty plain, admittedly, and there weren't a whole lot of world possessions that could speak either good or ill of me. I had a good-sized desk which could be called my prize furnishing, a heavy and comfortable-looking thing of solid wood and lots of drawers. I'd convinced the shop owner to give it to me on a payment plan, and covered it over the last year on a saved portion of my allowance and the occasional weekend odd job. I had in those drawers my textbooks and pens, pencils, paper, and what else I might need for school work, but most of the them were still empty. Other than that, there was my aged bed and a plain bedside table with a lamp on it, along with a few of framed pictures: one of my parents and I, one of Yukino and I from primary school, and one of my Grandparents. My thoughts lingered over the one of Yukino and I. It was taken nearly four years ago now, and I wondered if it seemed juvenile for it to still have such a valued position in my room.
While my mind started wondering about my venetian blinds--no curtain--and the lack of adornment on my walls, Yukino seemed to have finished, and walked right over to my bedside table and picked up the picture I had been concerned about. She smiled.
"Your graduation from primary school," she said. "You were so excited about going to junior high, I remember. I was worried that you were going to forget about me back there." Her features were gentle.
"Were you?" I asked, surprised.
"Mm-hmm," she nodded. "For a little while. I stopped worrying after you called, and we kept playing on weekends. I was afraid that you wouldn't want to be seen doing anything with a little kid."
"I never knew," I said, laughing a little bit. "I could have told you not to worry if you'd have just talked to me about your worries, Yukino," I chided gently. The girl could be shy to the point of a... rather ironic "aloofness," I knew well enough. I noticed sometimes that seemed to be the reason that she got singled out by classmates, and tried to nudge her out of it without being too mean about it.
"It all worked out, though, right?" She smiled brightly, and I had to return it, though with some exasperation.
"I suppose, but that's going to get you in trouble some day, keeping things like that to yourself. It can be difficult to hear those that speak too quietly, but it's impossible to understand those that don't speak at all." I thought that was rather appropriate. I might have read it somewhere, I think.
"Alright, I'll try," she said, nodding, but I wasn't all that sure that I'd actually gotten through to her. "Er, while I'm trying to speak my mind more, how about I ask where you were going to in such a hurry when I arrived? I don't want to keep you from anything you should be doing." Is that why she had looked so uncomfortable, I marveled? I thought she had just been unnerved by almost getting run over.
"Ah, no, I wasn't going anywhere, I just... er, thought that I would meet you out front, I hadn't realized you were already here."
"Oh, I see. Thank you for the thought, anyway."
I breathed in relief. I didn't need to tell her that for the purpose of that statement, "out front" included everywhere that was not within sight of my apartment door and "meet you" included the idea of saving her from danger, I would have just looked ridiculous at this point. That was rather unfair, I thought. If she had been in danger and I dashed out to look for her, I would have been lauded for having keen instincts and courage, but if she's okay I'm silly. Double-standard, that's what it was, rewarding people for having friends and loved ones that got into genuine danger. While I was mired in my thoughts, Yukino must have been getting herself set up, because a few moments later she called out, "So, was there anywhere you thought we should start? I think I know how to conjugate most of the verbs, but I don't have all the nouns memorized."
XXXXXXX
I thought that would be the better place to focus on for the moment. Haruka had been really attentive in class lately, and I knew her mind was sharp enough to grasp and understand concepts like conjugation and structure, it was going to be knowing the words themselves inside and out, by heart, that would help her boost her grades. Getting distracted by her own thoughts and mispelling or mispronouncing things was something she managed to do with a sometimes amusing, other times alarming, frequency, but I thought maybe it would help if she had strong memories of the words in mind when we tested tomorrow.
"Ah, sure, that would be good. I don't think I can help you with memorizing better, but it's a little less boring to study with two people, right?" Haruka answered, looking unsure of herself.
"Right," I agreed, trying to smile a smile that would ooze enthusiasm and encouragement into the room. Haruka-chan walked to her desk and opened a drawer, from which emerged her school notebook and a Japanese-English dictionary.
"You look like you're really serious, Haruka-chan," I said.
"Huh?"
"Your ponytail," I explained. "If you had a headband with a slogan, the picture would be complete."
"Oh!" She laughed. "It's convenient, sometimes."
It was remarkable. With Haruka-chan just sitting in her own room, laughing and--by now, compared to when I had first come in--relaxed, she was an almost perfect student. I couldn't find a word that she didn't know, though her spelling was occasionally off. Not entirely surprising, given the abundance of doubled or silent letters, and something that she easily got better about as we went on. At the same time, thought, it was frustrating to try and study with her. I figured that I would be engaged enough in trying to tutor her in things that she hadn't paid attention to before, but now that this wasn't the case, I found myself running out of things to study, and only belatedly realizing that I was doing pretty good for somebody that had said she needed help.
"You sure you needed to study together, Yukino? Looks like you've got everything down very well," Haruka lapsed into Japanese for a surprised statement, after we'd tried sharing a stilted, awkward conversation in English for a while, just for fun and practice.
"I guess I knew it better than I thought, Haruka-chan," I said, trying to infuse some modesty in my tone. "I must have just been anxious."
"Yeah, you're going to need to relax before the text. Trust me," she appended in a somber tone, her eyes picking a point of space somewhere above my right shoulder and focusing, adopting a self-reproaching expression. "I didn't do so well on that last exam because I let my nerves get the better of me."
"Nerves, Haruka-chan?" I couldn't help sounding surprised. I knew she got distracted by things, but I had never once allowed myself to think of it as nervousness on her part, I didn't know she did that. "I knew you could have a lot of nerve, sometimes--in a good way!--but I never thought of Haruka-chan being nervous."
"It happens occasionally," she grumbled, flushing, but she smiled. "Believe it or not. Actually, don't believe it, I'd rather have you think me infallably confident and brave."
"I don't think I could ever stop seeing you like that, Haruka-chan. I'd see you charging the Black Knight with your sword high while you chewed the fingernails of the other hand."
"Ah..." She blinked several times. "I think I got the gist of that, but Black Knight? Why am I suddenly doing battle with an English villain?"
"Because we're studying English, of coures," I said, thinking that sounded a little better than explaining my long-held view of her as a shining knight-prince from my childhood storybooks.
"Of course," she acknowledged, nodding in understanding. The effect was put off slightly when her stomach gurgled. I looked in surprise first at her, then at the clock. We had been studying for nearly two-and-a-half hours, somehow.
"Er, sorry about that," Haruka-chan apologized. "For that matter, did you eat before you came over?"
"No, I haven't eaten," I said truthfully. Now that I realized what time it was, my stomach seemed to take note, and I did find that I was a little hungry.
"Why don't I go get us a little something to snack on? I'll be right back." Haruka-chan wheeled her chair out from under her desk and stood, walking out of the room. I was alone in her room. As most people's do, whenever left alone in a new place, I took the chance to examine my surroundings a little more closely. It was kind of hard; Haruka-chan's room was sparsely decorated, outfitted with little more than the necessities of a desk, bed, and door. Er, two doors, I amended, but I wasn't about to peek in her closet, that would be rude and she could come back at any moment. I didn't see a dresser anywhere, so I wondered if she kept her clothes in there. A few things colliding in my mind, I wondered too if she had any new clothes to wear, as most of her other things must have been starting to get small on her, like her uniform had. I could just say I wanted to look at her wardrobe, couldn't I? Wasn't that something that a friend was supposed to be interested in and perfecly reasonable?
I opened the closet, and immediately felt disappointed. What was really appalling is that I couldn't say why I was disappointed. I saw her winter uniform hanging up, and privately thought that, with what I'd seen of her figure, she wasn't going to be able to wear that a few months. I didn't see anything that jumped out at me; a couple of jackets, pants, skirts, blouses and shirts. Actually, I blushed a little, seeing that her closet was a lot emptier than mine. Eyes casting down, I saw a small set of cardboard drawers that I assumed she must keep socks and undergarments and such in, and I slowly backed up and closed the closet, feeling ashamed of myself. Shaking my head, I walked over and had a seat on her bed. It felt thin, and didn't help my mood, but my eyes managed to find their way to her photographs again.
I looked at the one of she and I again, picking it up and smiling at it. I was wearing that same disoriented expression I usually did in pictures of she and I, as though I'd just stumbled into the picture and been told "smile!" That was usually caused in part by Haruka-chan usually having to reach behind herself and pull me forward instead of hiding behind her, but I think that there was more to it. I knew at some level that Haruka-chan wasn't a very social person, either, and that she didn't have a whole lot of friends other than me, but she still carried that princely persona to me most of the time, and it had emerged at strange times when we were younger. I chuckled at myself, "when we were younger," I thought, and yet that was only two years ago. But whenever I had been expected to pose for a picture with her, by either her parents or mine, I had always felt uncomfortable. Not because I didn't like my picture taken, but because it seemed odd to think of me and her in that way, friends that would have pictures taken together. That was something that happened in those stories of fast friends that had known one another since they could remember, right? It was strange to think of Haruka-chan and I like those strong, long-lasting unshakeable friendships that I read about.
My eyes fell beyond the picture I held, at the other two decorating her table. One I recognized immediately as Haruka-chan's parents. Her father was a stern-looking man with dark hair and deep lines in his brow and at the corners of his mouth, but his posture was relaxed in this picture, and though he was wearing a button-up white shirt, it was unbuttoned down his chest, and at least a few of those lines were associated with the smile that he wore, matching the smile in his expressive violet eyes. I had often thought those had seemed extremely odd for him, and that he should have a darker eye colour, but on rare occasons like this one they seemed to match. Her mother was wearing a yellow summer dress that couldn't quite match the gold of her hair, cut short around her ears. I understood that long hair would have been a hazard in the job she had worked a few years ago, and she'd become accustomed to it. She had a tendency to make an adoring fuss over Haruka's silky, long hair, though, as I'd noticed when I had gone places with them before. Her eyes somehow didn't match, either; they were so dark as to be almost black. I noticed that when I looked at them individually like that, I noticed their peculiarities, but taking it as a whole, I saw a whole. Their individual mismatches seemed to make them even more fit for one another, and there in the middle was Haruka-chan, the perfect result of their matching.
The other picture was harder to place, and much to my consternation, it remained hard to place. I could only assume that it was a pair of her grandparents; which one it was I couldn't tell; their hair was gray and they didn't resemble either of her parents very strongly. It bothered me suddenly that I didn't know anything about her family besides her mother and father. Could this be a pair of grandparents that had passed away, and that's why she kept a picture of them nearby? Or perhaps they lived far away and she kept a picture here to remind her of them, while she actually got to see her other grandparents often. Maybe one of her parents was estranged from his or her own parents, and Haruka had never gotten the chance to know them. I set it down with a frown, bothered. Before I could be too bothered, though, my mind was torn away to something a great deal more disturbing.
I smelled smoke.
At first it just passed through a breath like a passing thought, but the next hinted rather strongly that I hadn't imagined it, and a second later the smell was so thick that I was running through the door before I'd had a chance to exhale it out.
"Haruka-chan!?" I shouted, and my eyes widened at the cloud of smoke on the cieling, but after that first alarming sight I noticed that the flames were confined to a small patch on the stove that Haruka-chan was beating at furiously with double-handfuls of rapidly-disintigrating kitchen towels. Her face turned to me, a silent alarm in her eyes. Looking around quickly, my first destination was the cabinets under the sink. Of course, Haruka-chan's parents were sensible people, so I was right to think there was a fire-extinguisher in there. Grabbing it, pulling the pin, and aiming, I soon had the stove covered in a layer of thick foam and free of flames. I looked around for what had been burning, but at first all I saw was blackened fragments of the towels she had been using. My eyes were starting from the smoke, and I squeezed them closed to moisten and protect them. I felt the fire-extinguisher gently lifted from my grasp and a thunk as it was set aside, and then a pair of firm hands grasped me by the shoulders and led me away from the stove. I opened my eyes after they began to feel better, and found myself near the door. I looked around for Haruka-chan, but she was gone and I almost panicked, irrationally I'll admit, but I was scared, but then she emerged from her parent's room with a box fan and opened the door, setting it there and turning it on to ventilate the apartment. I shook my head, and crouched to grab Haruka-chan's hands from where she sat. She jerked them away from me though, and I was hurt. Apparently, however, so was she.
"Yowch!" She yelped, and held her hands up to her face. When I looked at her eyes looking at her hands, I also saw that they were red and rimmed with tears, obviously stinging something fierce. Looking at her hands, too, I saw that they were terribly red, and regretted grabbing them like I had.
"Haruka-chan, you need to get those under some running water," I said, my mind finally finding something firm to latch onto. "It's actually getting worse the longer you wait," I told her matter-of-factly, and she got up without saying a word and walked to the sink. Hurrying a step ahead of her, I turned the water on, just a shade of cool from luke-warm ( I didn't want it to be a shock and hurt her) although she still grimaced when she thrust her hands into the water and I saw her arms stiffen.
"Okay, that ought to do it," I said after about fifteen seconds. My mom had taught me a little bit about burns, she worked in a hospital. I grabbed a couple of paper towels from a roll and told her to hold out her hands. As gently as I could, though her cheek twitched now and again, I dried her hands and had a look at them. They were bright red, but I only saw one blister forming on her left pinkie finger.
"Do you have any lotion, Haruka-chan? Aloe-vera based, preferably?" I asked.
"I think so, look at that bottle on top of the refrigerator, my mom uses it after she does dishes or takes a bath."
I went and got it.
"Before we apply this, though, we need to wash your eyes out. You don't want to be using your hands too much right now, so..." I walked to the sink and turned the water back on, cupping my hands and filling them with water. "Could you lean over the sink? This might not work very well, but I'll try my best." Haruka leaned over and I did my best to splash water in her eyes as though she were the one doing it, though it was awkward from beside her. I did that three times, and told her to go ahead and upright herself, grabing a paper towel to pat her face dry, and wiping away the underside of her eyes with my thumbs. Her cheeks were really soft, I realized, her wet skin sliding like silk under my fingers.
XXXXXXX
I felt a little helpless while Yukino took care of me, but as soon as I had finished taking care of her and plugging in the fan, I'd become acutely aware of my hands burning as though they were still on fire, and my eyes felt little better, so I hadn't argued when she took charge of giving me some first-aid. My eyes felt a whole lot better after she washed them out, though my hands somehow felt even worse now. She said it had been good, though, so I tried not to focus on them. She wiped the underside of my eyes a lot of times with her fingers, though there wasn't any dripping water after the first or second time, but I didn't want to berate her or anything, the careful, gentle look in her eyes as she took care of me was wonderful, and a lot more... solid than the trepidation I usually saw behind her expression.
She squirted some of the lotion into her hands next, and started rubbing it into my burns. Her hands and face were incredibly gentle, but liquid velvet would have felt like sandpaper to my raw flesh right now, so I did my best not to complain and bear with it. After the first few shocking moments of cold and raw rubbing, though, they started to feel a little bit better, and she got a little bit more lotion before she was finished, for good measure.
"They're mostly first-degree burns," she explained as she rubbed my hands, "The pain mostly comes from all the moisture being burned from the flesh. There's a little blister on your pinkie, indicating the heat exposure was a little more serious around there, but it should be okay. Didn't you remember that there was a fire-extinguisher under the sink, Haruka-chan?"
I was glad that she was paying such careful attention to her job, so she wouldn't see me blush. "Um, kind of. I just, her, was waiting for the right time to go get it," I answered lamely.
"I see," she said, and now I was rather irritated that I couldn't see her face, because I had no idea what kind of meaning she had imbued that with, so neutral was her speech. Her touch was gentle enough and the soothing feel of the lotion soaking in so welcome that I didn't mind for a while, but eventually I came to realize that she had been at it for quite a while, and I was pretty sure that all the lotion had been worked in.
"Er, is massage important to the burns, too, Yukino?" I hazarded. She looked up suddenly, and her glasses jumped on her nose and fell just barely askew, kind of cutely.
"Er, ah, no, not really, Haruka-chan," she said, letting go of my hands. "But, er, make sure that we apply some more later, before you go to bed. Depending on how the burns look in the morning you might want to do some more; you just definitely want to keep the skin moist until its better. I'd hate to see something bad happen to hands as beautiful as yours," she continued in her matter-of-fact tone, but suddenly a blush infused her cheeks. i got the feeling she hadn't actually meant to say that last part aloud.
"Er, if you say so," I said, holding up my hands to see. "I don't think it would be all that great a loss," I remarked. I didn't ever use extra moisturizer, and kept my nails short, so I didn't see much of anything "beautiful" in them. "I don't owe them any particularly ill-will, though, so I'll follow the doctors orders."
"What started the fire, anyway?" She asked suddenly.
"Oh, just a little oil fire. Spilled, and the gas flame..." I stopped short, to Yukino's alarm, and went to turn off the gas on the stove. Yukino looked at me wide-eyed.
"Er, it's been well-ventilated, you don't suppose...?" I asked, and left the question hanging in the air.
"It's probably okay?" She said.
"No smoking for at least a half-hour," I said facetiously, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Right," she answered with a chuckle. "What were you heating oil for a snack for?" She asked curiously.
Ah... I didn't feel as though I wanted to tell her that I was trying to think of something that seemed more like cooking that warming something up or grabbing it from the pantry, just to try to kind of, well, impress her or pay her back more appropriately for her lunches.
"I, er, just felt a sudden craving for something fried," I answered, looking away. She just smiled up at me, andI felt relieved. Her expression shifted, though, and her eyes looked over my shoulder. I turned to see a man in a uniform looking somewhat confused and uncomfortable in my doorway, blue, pressed pants ruffling in the wind of the box fan.
"Er, is this the Suzushiro residence?" He asked hesitatingly.
"It is. This is Suzushiro Haruka, can I help you?" I said as politely as I could with burned hands, a gym-shirt-with-school-skirt-wardrobe, likely red eyes, a smoke-tinged room, and a friend standing behind me.
"Telegram," he answered, and I could only stare at him, one eyebrow slowly climbing its way up my forehead.
"Telegram?" I repeated skeptically.
"Telegram," he repeated firmly. I thought about that for a moment.
"Telegram?" I repeated again, a little less disbelievingly, but still a little doubtful. He rolled his eyes--quite rude, I thought. I was never going to use this telegram service--and answered one more time.
"Telegram." He offered his hand with a piece of paper, and before I could grab it with my lotioned-and-tender hands, Yukino offered her hand first. To the impolite fellow's credit, he looked to me for affirmation before allowing her to accept it, and I nodded. He left..
"What's it say, Yukino?"
"Let's see." She opened it. "Dear Suzushiro-san, stop. I do believe it escapes your acceptable boundaries of responsibility to expect you to spend your own resources for a new uniform, stop. I'd hate to imagine the cost in transcribing that many words," Yukino noted absently, then continued. "So I have enclosed cash in sufficient amount to cover that cost, stop. I am nothing more than a concerned benefactor, stop. This invonveniences me in no way, stop. Also enclosed is a promotional offer for a free meal from a local establishment, stop. Please enjoy, stop. Please keep being such a diligent student, stop. Never abandon your standards of excellence, stop." Yukino finished with a tone of awe, and held up for my eyes a thin layer of crisp yen, and a coupon for a pizza chain restaurant that had recently opened up nearby. I was speechless.
"It looks like there's enough here for two tailored uniforms, Haruka-chan, summer and winter, and the coupon looks official. Who in the world...?" She shook her head, and looked questioningly at me.
"I have no idea," I answered. "I guess... that's actually really creepy. Is somebody stalking me!?" I demanded indignantly.
"It is rather mysterious, Haruka-chan," Yukino admitted. "But I don't know that you would be able to do anything in that case. 'Excuse me, officer, somebody gave me money, a free meal, and told me I was a good person, and now I fear for my safety,'?" She said, and I admitted there was something of a lack of threat in that scenario.
"So, pizza?" Yukino suggested. "It sure is a convenient extra for this person to throw along now, isn't it? Might as well make the best of things," she added, as though reading my thoughts of feeling guilty for taking advantage of an unknown benefactor.
"Uh, sure, I guess?" I answered hesitatingly. "I've never actually had any, isn't it kind of expensive?" I clamped down on my tongue; I hadn't needed to add that last part.
"A little bit," she answered. "But is there anything you know that you don't like?"
I thought for a moment. "No corn, it's bad for the digestion. Something spicy would be nice, though, peppers maybe?" I ventured. "Oh! But maybe not, you don't like spicy that much--"
"It's okay, I think I can get the toppings in halves, I'll see what they tell me."
XXXXXXX
I called the establishment and inquired as to getting something delivered. The offer didn't cover delivery charge, but I had a little bit of money so I thought I could just do it, and probably hide it from her, so I told them that was fine. In the end I just ended up ordering a basic supreme, though I didn't know what it was. They just told me that, no, it didn't have corn and, yes, I could add peppers to it, and they offered jalapenos as a recommendation, so I put that on half. Finishing with that, I looked down at the coupon slip, as though it might offer some hint as to who had done this. the name of the pizza store was somewhat generic, and didn't have a family name associated with it, and neither did the little copyright talking about the owners and proprietors. I firmly told myself to ignore it, and turned the paper upside-down.
Letting my eyes fall on it one more time was definitely my mistake. On the back there was a tiny bit of text giving credit to the advertising firm that had produced some of the design work on the flier that this had come from. The name, "Fujino" stood out at me in characters that seemed impossibly enormous, filling my eyes until I couldn't see anything else and drumming themselves in my mind. I first tried to tell myself that Fujino was a perfectly common surname. When I replied to myself that this argument was a load of crap, I then told myself to shut up and not think about it, and went back to Haruka-chan's room, where she had retreated to.
"It should be here in about a half and hour," I told her quietly, mind shrieking that her rival and passive tormenter was also her mysterious benefactor (stalker?).
"That's good, I finally remembered that I'm still hungry," she answered with a smile. "Now, how about we get a little bit more studying done?" She suggested. "That's why you came over, right?"
"Oh, yes," I said, trying to return her smile. She suggested the right thing, though, because my mind switched so effortlessly into an academic frame and away from other thoughts that it seemed a divinely-inspiring blessing that managed to continue most of the night. The pizza came eventually, and even the knowledge of its source couldn't deny the fact that it was good. I made Haruka let me feed her, though. Half of the reason was because I was worried about her hands, even tightening her hand to hold her pen bothered me, but--I knew that she needed to use her hands and maintain flexibility in her skin, so at some level I knew that I was bold to be thinking that even half the reason was that--more I just wanted to... feed her. I don't know why, it just kind of felt nice, and her silly grin as we persisted in the little ritual was a treasure. Soon the pizza box was empty, and we had changed into our pajamas. Sometime durning the night, too, I offered to sew up her uniform for tomorrow so she wouldn't have to use her gym shirt again. She argued, and I learned that it was slightly too small for her, but I argued too, saying that the same must be true about her gym shirt, so she eventually relented and I spent a little while sewing her uniform up. While I was doing so, I was a little amused at how Haruka-chan kept studying, and occasionally asking an absent-minded question to me, not even seeming to have noticed that we had utterly forsaken the pretense that this study session was mostly for my benefit. The next thing I knew, we must have fallen asleep. I got the better end of the bargain, having laid down on her bed as I began to get a little fatigued. Haruka-chan must have fallen asleep at her desk, as that was the last place I saw her.
XXXXXX
I woke up next to Yukino on the bed, having that feeling that I hadn't gotten anywhere near a healthy amount of sleep and wondering why I was waking up anyway, but the realization that it was the sun which had woken me up, by being a good deal brighter and angling in my window at a level other than it usually did when I first awoke. I lay there, letting that sink in, and then I sat up, tried to leap out of bed, and ended up flopping over Yukino's sleeping form. She was apparently awoken by the sound of my heavy flopping onto the floor, and looked around bleary-eyed.
"Wh-what? Where the who can ka-chan?" She mumbled.
"Wake up, wake up!" I shouted, a little more harshly than I intended. "We're late, late for school!"
"Huh, what?" She shook her head, and rubbed her eyes roughly. "Late, what, how?" She said, confusion dripping from her voice. I couldn't have been sure if she even realized that she wasn't at home, but I answered anyway.
"Forgot to set my alarm, now hurry, we need to get going!"
Eventually she came to her better senses and we got our things gathered back up and got dressed, although Yukino took forever about it. I had stripped naked and put everything back on, only to look back and find her staring stupidly in my direction--I felt bad for even thinking stupidly later, but I wasn't in a good mood. Honestly she seemed alert at that point, of all the times to zone out with her mind on who-knows-what!
We walked out of the door and I started walking quickly in the direction of the school. It was a pretty good way, so I knew we couldn't run the whole way, and would only manage to get there panting, sweaty, and drained anyway, so I checked my impatience and we walked to school. For the most part, anyway. When we got to school, I felt relieved, all the way up until students started pouring out of the building, and I noted the high position of the sun. I muttered something under my breath that I only had once before on school grounds, and broke into a run.
"H-Haruka-chan?"
"We just missed the English test!" I yelled over my shoulder, and heard her steps running, too, but I also heard myself outrun them rather easily. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw Yukino hugging her bag to her chest and slowed for a moment, grabbing a hand and pulling her along with me.
XXXXXXXX
Pulling me along with her, as always. Haruka-chan grabbed my hand in her warm, fast grip--I felt the roughness of them and realized that I hadn't told her to put on any more lotion, and realized that this kind of grip must pain her--and pulled me along at her pace. After a few stumbling steps, my glasses slipping crooked, I was able to stabilize my stride and go along with her, everything around me sinking in to realize that it was lunch time.
We burst into the classroom to see Miss Nakamura putting up her belongings, clearly preparing for her own break. We stopped just beyond the doorway, heaving and panting for breath. Haruka-chan was much more athletic than I and caught her breath first.
"Miss Nakamura, I apologize! Yukino and I overslept, and it's entirely fault, I forgot to set my alarm while we were studying. Please, if nothing else allow her to take the test without repurcussion, and I'll take whatever you deem fit as punishment." I heard her words, and if I wasn't already out of breath, the declaration might have taken my breath away. I tried to summon the words to argue with her, but they wouldn't come.
"Oh, is that what happened?" Miss Nakamura said with a nonchalance that seemed wholly out of place given Haruka's deathly formal and selfless pronouncement. "Of course, you can both take the test, right now if you like. That way you're less likely to be accused of cheating, of course, and I don't have to draft a new test. That sound alright?"
"What? That's it?" Haruka said immediately, disbelievingly.
"Of course. You're both exemplary students, and most of the faculty believe that you'd rather eat your textbooks than be dishonest, Suzushiro-san. I think we can make a little exception this time. Don't make it a habit, though."
"I won't!" Haruka-chan affirmed emphatically, and I had recovered enough to stand calmly and bow in thanks, smiling at her. I could almost see Haruka-chan swelling with pride beside me for the praise.
After the test, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed, though. I wasn't quite sure if our studying had worked, because although she and Fujino tied in score later--and I as well, we all aced it--Haruka-chan wasn't able to take the test in a classroom environment, with the rest of the students and her rival around. Still, she did well, which was enough for me and for her at the moment. Haruka-chan was filled with confidence for the rest of that year, and I had a new memory to cherish, her taking the time to keep me with her, pulling me along to class in that, my first year of middle school, and selflessly, my well-being the first thing in her mind, try to convince Miss Nakamura that I shouldn't be punished for being so late. It might have been sometime around here that I stopped loving her quite like a prince, and started loving her for the woman she was becoming before my eyes.
XXXXXXX
Right, everything had ended up fantastically back then, I recall. So, while I feel the stares of Haruka-chan's parents on us as we walk up the stairs to her bedroom to drop off our belongings, I can't help but feel a certain optimism for the weekend. No matter what, despite what she might have to face, Haruka-chan has always done what she felt to be right an,d lucky for me, she has recently determined that it is right to be with me on campus.
"Er, you can take a guest bedroom if you like, Yukino," Haruka-chan mentions as we walk towards her room. "You don't have to share with me."
"That's okay, Haruka-chan. I want to stay in your room again, it's been a while. Feels like forever," I mentioned wistfully. It was such a pleasant time, when I hadn't known how I felt about Haruka-chan, how strongly I would come to want her, and her presence, and her... everything, and how much it would hurt not to have it; yet, looking back, I knew it was the same feeling back then, and time was the only difference between then and now.
"Thanks for saying so, Yukino. You're always welcome," she added. I thought briefly of the last year, when that party at the villa had been held and I had disappeared with a simple, "good night," to her, not wanting to risk being told no if I asked to stay in her room, with so many fellow students around. Another moment of hesitation, later looked on with regret. They certainly were piling up.
I was going to have to stop doing that, I knew. We walked into her room and after setting our luggage down, sat down on her fluffy bed, representative of the soft, warm, pleasurable side of Haruka-chan that the rest of the world never got to see, one that I didn't even see as much of as I had used to. It was another regret, I suppose, and I was suddenly reminded of my contact with Kuga-san the other day, wondering if love could change that for Haruka-chan, make her show that soft side more. I allowed myself to briefly entertain the far-fetched notion that perhaps I was the one who might be able to do that.
That was silly, though. If that was going to happen, I was going to have to make it happen. I was going to have to speak up, and make myself understood. The silent could never be understood, after all. She had said that. Nobody was going to offer any mysterious aid in this endeavor. My mind flew back to that mysterious telegram. Even today, I hadn't been able to fully convince myself that it had been Fujino-san who had sent that, though her disposition towards inexplicable acts and seeming omniscience, which had only grown over the years, certainly seemed to support it. I chuckled inside, though it was tinged with sadness. I certainly couldn't expect any sudden, inexplicable help from that person with my prbolem.
"Come on, Yukino. They'll be expecting to see us again soon, I could tell. Better not to give them time to prepare and call us, right?" She stood and held out her hand. I took it, smiling.
"They're your parents, Haruka-chan," I pointed out. "You make them sound like an enemy, or something similar."
She looked back at me, an expression I couldn't readily identify in her face, but then turned her face forward. "I don't care who they are, anybody who tries to step between us is something like an enemy." Her hand tightened on mine. "And the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
I could only stay silent for a moment. This was somewhat apart from her usual pronunciation error, but I still felt I had to say something. "Ah, I don't know that that saying really applies to anything here, Haruka-chan."
"Oh?" She replied, and I started to focus on the fact that she still hadn't let go of my hand. "Oh well, it might not apply, but I guess it's true? If somebody stepped in right now and did something to help bring us together, I would have to think of them as a friend. Right." Her words slipped right past me at that moment, my mind focused entirely on the warmth of her hand and starting to worry about the purpose of the weekend meeting with her parents. It might have paid off later for me to pay more attention to her words, but once again, I think everything managed to turn out alright, and sometimes it's the results that matter. I let myself be linked with Haruka-chan for now, going at her pace as she held my hand and pulled me along, fully intent on protecting and caring for me. Some things never changed, from beginning to end.
*Author's note
Well jee-zuz, aren't I a procrastinator? However, I think I'm finally ready to say that I'm putting the lid on this one, and marking up another fic as complete. There are woefully few of those compared to the "in-progress" ones, aren't there? Thank you all for staying with this effort, though.
In case you couldn't tell, these were kind of started to be a prequel of sorts to my other YuHaru fic, "Tea Leaves, Coffee Beans, and a Touch of Mint." For those that haven't followed my illustrious (lol right) fanfiction career, I started that one far before this one, and that one was actually my first fic ever. Though I started this after I started that one, updates have been... interesting for both (omg two effin' year wtf!?), and I'm actually finishing the last two chapters of this fic after I penned the last word of Tea Leaves (two chapters are currently finished and in the editing process, but life happens, and that's just a little pitfall of collaborative work that we have to deal with to get something spectacular). I tried at the end here to kind of give some foreshadowing to that fic, so if you haven't read that one I would request that you go do so (it might be interesting to start, I think my writing style has shifted over time, but it remains my favorite fic regardless, for a number of reasons, my first, I think my best, the amount of input and aweseomness that Enshi put into it, that sort of thing). If you've already read Tea Leaves up to where it is, I hope you can have a little ironic lol at the ending here, and I promise that Tea Leaves has to be finished as some point, because it is finished, despite the lack of posting. Try and go enjoy some of my other unfinished fics? Or, if you just feel the need for horrible crushing sadness, check out my other YuHaru fic "Hesitation" for a face-falling "wtf?" experience.
In addition, for faithful readers, I want to mention that I went back and adjusted the second part of this fic (about Haruka's first visit to Yukino's in primary school) for less confusion. It was an entertaining experiment in view point in writing, but writing is always going to be about reaching people for me, and after some comments I'm afraid it might have been turning people off, so I made the leaps between view point more clearly defined.
Woo, chalk up one finished fic! Here's to more to follow! (hint, What Worth and Still-Life Sketch are the two that actually have anything written for the next chapter, although Two Kitties' has some concept-work built up behind it, so one of those three are likely to be next, though how long that might take is... don't hold your breath. I might make it before you die, but I don't want to take that chance ^^;;